


Crossing Flight

by notbug (KageKashu)



Series: Wings Over Gaia [1]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII, Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zack Lives, Fix-It, Gen, M/M, Morbid Imagery, Pre-Slash, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-17 01:16:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2291579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KageKashu/pseuds/notbug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zack's life is so complicated. Iruka can't say his is much better.</p><p>(Now with Art. Check Endnotes for details.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crossing Flight

**Author's Note:**

> Major Spoilerage for Crisis Core, esp. the ending; and maybe FFVII, if you've not gotten that far yet (in the past decade and a half that it's been out)? Vague-ish spoilers for Naruto, but little of importance, since I haven't read any of it in forever.  
> Anyway, why shouldn't we try and save Zack?

Crossing Flight: _When another bird flies between a hawk and its quarry._

The Midgar Barren

Thick and heavy rain washed over the barren wasteland. Slime molds were the only living things capable of surviving long in this harsh environment, and even they didn't last long when the rain stopped. In a brighter light, the hand that slipped across the slimy rocks may have been a warm olive brown, but in the hazy light that managed to reach the ground, everything looked grayish, even the blood that was being coughed down onto it. Dark eyes squinted up into the downpour only to have their acuity fade quickly. The ground shook gently and gave way beneath the man who had been crouched on a ledge overlooking a paved road. 

His hands scrabbled through the mud and rocks, but he was unable to catch himself in the sudden landslide. He rolled to a stop a short time later and just laid there, eyes staring unblinkingly to the gloomy sky even as the rain stung them. He had to get up. He coughed wetly and climbed to his hands and knees. The road, at least, gave him an idea of what he was doing. Where there are roads, there are people, and where there are people, there is information. 

Umino Iruka was in dire need of information. He wasn't going to get that information scrabbling in the mud. 

Iruka may have been a ninja, but that didn't always mean anything. He was a teacher, not a fighter (although he certainly could fight when pressed), and he had stopped taking missions outside of Konohagure years ago. Ninjas who survived often lived long lives, but right now, Iruka was really feeling his thirty years... or perhaps that was a punctured lung, which would be very bad. His equipment wasn't sufficient for that kind of injury. Iruka often expected to be cut and stabbed and thusly was prepared for it. None of his kids would be capable of inflicting a dire internal injury on him without a lot of luck. 

Of course, his current condition had nothing to do with his students, who were possibly getting worried about him by now. Godaime-sama has probably sent out ANBU to look for him. Taking family history into consideration, there would be at least one Hyuuga on that team. It wouldn't be Hiyashi, Iruka mused, too tired to do much more than put one foot ahead of the other. Hiyashi had more important things to do than to look after wayward Chunin, even if it was Iruka. It was probably going to be Neji. Neji was growing into a fine young Jounin. Perhaps it would be Hinata: she was more than capable. 

It took longer than expected to get back up to the road. Iruka wanted to blame that on the odd ache in his side, and the fact that he was having difficulty breathing. Up close, the road looked strange and far darker than it should. A pungent odor wafted up from it; like tar and kerosene. There was a bright yellow line in the middle of it, and Iruka, coughing wetly, set about following it in one direction. 

The rain came down even harder, bouncing up from the pavement to about waist high before settling down, and Iruka kept walking. 

* * *

The sound of fireworks interrupted the quiet daze that Iruka had fallen into, and his head whipped up, eyes trying to identify the source of the noise. A crackle, a whistle and a boom echoed, followed by an escalating buzzing noise. It started out nearly silent, the tone of it low enough to be missed under the rain, but rose to a roar as it grew closer. Prudently, Iruka darted off of the road to what he thought was a safe distance and waited. Whatever it was, it sounded as though it was coming in his direction. 

Through the obscurity of the rain, a bright white light shone and the roar increased in volume. Within moments, it had already passed him, flying in the direction he had come from, with two little red lights trailing after it. "What the fuck was that?" he growled under his breath, and turned to run after it. He wasn't the fastest ninja in Konoha, but he might be able to catch up to the thing if he took a shortcut across the cliffs. 

Running after it may not have been the best idea, but it was better than what he had been doing with the exception of making his side hurt worse. 

It turned out that he didn't need to take the shortcut, however; the landslide from before seemed to have stopped it. A low whine, winding down into almost nothing, came from the strange machine that was still emitting light from its back end. One wheel still spun, looking like it wasn't going to stop any time soon. The machine looked a bit like a bicycle with an engine and a powerful, heavy frame and a spotlight. Iruka had never seen anything like it. 

The engine looked like a work of art, but the rest of it looked too damned complicated. Steam rose from it as it cooled down and Iruka leaned close to catch some of its escaping warmth. One good thing had come of this, he thought, following a trail of footprints that led toward the other half of the road. There was a person to follow, now. The depth of the prints suggested that the person was carrying something heavy. The size indicated that the person was an adult, likely male, and large. 

He would have to investigate the machine at a later date. The man who had been running it was more important now. 

* * *

The tall, dark haired man narrowed his eyes and shielded them from the rain with a gloved hand. He was disappointed in the loss of his transportation, of course, but he had to keep his chin up, for his companion, if nothing else. "It's okay, you know," he rasped and swallowed against the gunk building up in his throat. "We'll still make it to Midgar." He nudged the smaller man who he had carried over the treacherous footing caused by a recent landslide, and the frail blond jerked slightly in response. Zack held back a sigh of relief. He couldn't let it show for one moment that he had anything less than absolute faith in Cloud's ability to recover. 

Cloud had barely shown any sort of awareness since they had escaped Nibelheim. 

Zack coughed and sniffed deeply, frowning for a brief instant. "God, I hate Midgar's rainy season, Spike. It sucks away all the warmth, and makes the ground all slimy then it turns around and disappears. You don't see a drop of water that wasn't imported for months... it gets so dry... Anyway," he said, smiling into the sky at the lessening strength of the downpour, "perhaps we'll have an early summer?" 

The rain's lightening up aside, they still needed shelter. In spite of the minute response, Cloud was clearly deteriorating, and at the rate they were moving, Zack knew that it was likely that one of them wouldn't make it. 

"We'll be there by dark tomorrow," he told his limp companion as he searched the cliff face for a dry nook in which to secrete themselves. "And then you can meet my girlfriend," Zack sighed, having found a decently sheltered place. With a determined face, he set about dragging Cloud up and shoving him as deeply into it as possible. He settled into the outer part of the nook, which, while still dry, was more open to the cutting winds that occasionally cropped up in the empty lands around Midgar. "Hey buddy, I'll take first watch; alright?" 

Unsurprisingly, the blond didn't respond. That was alright. Zack would take the second watch as well, and the same tomorrow, and the next day, until they were relatively safe. _'Hopefully,'_ he thought, pulling out and straightening the crumpled letter from his pocket. A smaller paper tried to fall loose, and he pinned it to the letter with his thumb. _'Hopefully she'll still be waiting for me...'_

_'Four years,'_ he mourned, head between his knees. _'Has it really been that long?'_

Cloud's fever was growing worse. Zack rested his knuckles gently on his young friend's forehead and winced when he felt the heat emanating from it. "Cloud," he sighed, his voice barely audible over the rain and the raspy burr that he was developing. He cleared his throat. "I mean it, Cloud; it's alright. We can hitch a ride when the rain lets up a little." 

The rain stopped during the night, and Zack had used the opportunity to scout out the nearby area. Since passing the landslide, he'd seen several roads intersecting the main one, and another turnoff for Kalm, so a plan to gain further transportation formulated in his head. He retrieved the quiescent blond from their hiding place and helped him limp to the side of the road. 

He'd never thought that hitchhiking looked difficult. Doing it, however, was a lot different than thinking about it. Sunshine filtered through the dwindling clouds, and the road, with its drying slime, remained empty of traffic. They were far enough from Midgar proper that Zack was pretty sure that he didn't want to walk the rest; especially not with Cloud on his shoulder. Defending both himself and Cloud was becoming more and more awkward as the days passed and they grew closer to Midgar. Zack was sure that it wouldn't be long before they had the entirety of the Shinra army on their asses. 

It would be easier to defend the blond if he was next to the road with Zack. 

"Here, there, Spike, I've got you," he mumbled, helping the blond down from their little nook. His voice sounded less raw this morning, as though the fitful not-sleep had actually done him some good. "Can you stand? We're hitchhiking today, so I need you to stand a little..." Zack frowned down at his ailing friend, acutely aware of the feeling of eyes on the back of his neck. He smoothed down the rising hairs there unconsciously. 

_'Is it the Turks?'_ he wondered, dragging his eyes across the terrain that he'd had his back on. _'But why wouldn't they show themselves?'_

"Cissnei?!" he bellowed, his voice echoing off of the rocks. His eyes darted from rocky crag to rocky crag and saw nothing that shouldn't be there. He bit his lip before yelling again. "Is that you up there, watching me, Cissnei!?" After a moment, he gave up with an irritated sigh. If it was Cissnei, she didn't want him to know that she was there. "Well... It seems alright for now, I guess," he murmured skeptically. "There's a ridge further up; at least, there should be. We can take the old road. With that landslide back there, there's bound to be an official cleanup crew heading this way, and we don't want to be caught up by that." 

They still ended up walking for quite a ways. The feeling of being watched cropped up a few more times, and he could never find the source of the intrusion. At one point, he did manage to spot something unusual: an outcropping that hadn't looked quite like that from the other side. Then again, it could have been Zack's imagination. The rock did nothing under his stare but what rocks normally do, so he eventually dismissed it. 

"Not the Turks?" he murmured under his breath. Cissnei wouldn't be able to hide so well from him, but they did have access to people of greater skills than her. Zack snorted and turned around to continue walking, laying his hand on the hilt of his sword as an obvious threat. "I know you're there," he shouted to whoever or whatever it was, "so I won't be slow to react should you attack me." To reassure Cloud, he smiled and nudged him into walking again. "I don't think it's dangerous. It's been there all morning, right? But... why is it following us?" 

* * *

The road was dry enough to have a thin layer of dust on it, a few hours later, when an old yellow pickup drew to a halt beside the hitchhiking pair. "Finally!" cheered Zack with a grin, rushing to the side of the truck and trying to look as harmless as possible. "Hey mister," he chirped when the window was opened, "are ya heading to Midgar?" The man nodded, but made no move to unlock the side door. 

"Ye kin ride in the back," he stated. "I know yer uniform, and while it's right kind of you to not make a threat, I dun think I want ye in the front." Zack sighed, his smile dimming as he remembered that SOLDIERs aren't all that well liked in the area around Midgar. Sourly, and a bit sarcastically, he wondered why. 

"Thank you, very much, sir," he replied. "Could I get my friend real quick? He's sick, and I'm trying to get him to a... certain kind of healer." He gave the man a weak grin as he indicated that Zack should hurry, because he wouldn't wait long for him. "Thank you again. Cloud, we've got a ride!" 

* * *

Iruka had lost them. A weird yellow _thing_ that looked like the unholy lovechild of a carriage and that machine from before had come and picked them up. As good a tracker as Iruka was, this only posed a minor problem. He had, at least, already known the direction they were going before the... larger machine had taken off at a speed that put the smaller one to shame, and eliciting a loud whoop from the larger man standing in the wagon-bed backend of the machine. 

He was actually vaguely surprised that the man hadn't fallen from the back of it as it sped away. He _could_ have kept up with them, under normal circumstances. However, the spore filled dust cloud that rose behind the machine aggravated his poorly cared for cough. Once again he tasted blood and he grimaced. 

* * *

About half a day's ride later, Zack was sadly apologizing to the driver of the pickup. "Sorry about this, man," he sighed, handing the driver a half-mastered materia. "This is the best I can do to help you out. You should probably just head back to Kalm." He stared sincerely into the other man's eyes. "That should easily cover the damages to your truck, if not more..." 

The man shook his head, a small smile creeping onto his face. "Lad, I dunno what ye did to piss off the Shinra, but I do know that it makes ye alright in my book." He looked thoughtfully at the materia in his hand. "I think I shan't be goin' to Midgar this evenin'," he murmured, squinting against the bright glare of the sun distorting the wet and barren landscape. "I thank ye right kindly fer this, too, lad. I won't be soon forgetting ye twae." 

"Take care," Zack grinned. The grin was faked, but... the man wouldn't know that. "Midgar, hell, anywhere with a major Shinra influence is no place to be, anymore." As if in agreement, the man put his vehicle in reverse, in order to turn and head back the way they had come from. The smile dropped away from Zack's features, lending him an eerie, haunted look. He could hear the sounds of _war_ in the near distance - the shuffling of cloth, the clicking of metal on metal, the stomps of boots... and a bit more distantly, the deep thumping beat of a chopper. "Well, Cloud... I think it's time." 

He shifted the blond into a better hidden place amongst the jagged boulders surrounding them. With another smile, he patted his silent companion on the head, ruffled his damp blond spikes, and stood. The steady, throbbing thump-thump-thump of a helicopter - much closer now - seemed to decide him, and he turned away from his ill friend, suddenly ready to face that which fate had saddled him with. 

Because he didn't look back, he didn't see the slim, leather clad hand lift weakly to reach for him as he walked away. 

* * *

The sky, strangely devoid of clouds, was darkening into the deep blue of early evening when Iruka saw the ugly yellow machine again. It was heading the opposite direction from before, and at a higher speed. He cocked his head to the side, watching closely as it passed him. The two men were no longer in the wagon-like back of the carriage. In a brief flash, Iruka saw the face of the driver; a deep, painfully regretful expression occupied the man's face in that instant. 

In the distance, Iruka could just hear what sounded like the rhythmic whump of war drums, and he wondered again just what it was that he thought he was doing. Not long after he heard that first heavy beat, the sharp crackle of fireworks started up again; this time it sounded like hundreds, if not thousands. Unlike the first time he'd heard them, it didn't immediately stop. 

Even though he was still having difficulty breathing, he poured on that famous Konohagure-nin speed; he needed to see what was happening. He needed to know why fireworks and war drums were going off together; if for nothing else, but that he would see more people. However, as he neared the source of the sounds, the heady, overpoweringly metallic scent of blood invaded his nostrils. And when he could finally see... 

What he saw was absolutely mind-blowing. Bodies, all clad in like uniform, lie scattered across a windswept, bloodstained battlefield. In the middle of it all, stood one man, carrying an unforgivingly huge blade. It was the taller one of the pair he'd been tracking, and the weight of the sword seemed to be dragging the man down, slowly but surely, even as blood sprayed from wounds that Iruka couldn't recognize the cause of. 

In spite of the absurd size of the blade, and the near fifty fighters left, trying to take him down, the bloodstained warrior doggedly continued lifting the blade, even as it pulled him closer and closer to the ground. 

It wasn't the first time that Iruka had seen such incredible odds. Without divine intervention (possibly in the form of Iruka himself) there was no way the man would survive. Damning himself for his weakness toward the underdog, Iruka used his remaining shuriken and kunai to take out nearly half of the remnants, before throwing himself into the fray. 

* * *

... 

Zack dreamed. 

He remembered what had happened, of course, but even that he half expected was just part of the dream. After all, hadn't the (Dark Crescent?) ninja guy in Wutai said that he wanted to kill Zack? There was no reason for him to help him; ninja honor, and all that. Yet, in Zack's dream, the (Crescent Moon, Crimson Crescent?) guy had _helped him_ ; against the Shinra army, no less. 

His actual dream, though, the one that he knew for sure was a dream, had Angeal in it. Angeal had come down from the vast, liberating view of freedom, his hand extended to Zack; and Zack reached back. He wanted to fly too. 

He was so tired. 

But now, he couldn't be dreaming. Somehow, he probably wasn't even dead yet. Angeal hadn't come for him; that was just an image of peace and an end that his mind had taunted him with. Instead, he was alive, and he could tell because he was in a lot of pain and couldn't even move to ease it. He could barely even _breathe_. Beyond the reach of pain, beyond the faint feeling of dead grass prodding his cheek, he could feel someone gently cleansing and bandaging his many wounds. Even though he knew it couldn't be her, her name passed his dry, cracked lips in a hopeful sigh, "Aerith?" 

"Sorry," replied a pleasant sounding baritone. "That is not me." A wet chuckle followed the words. "You might want to be still. The bleeding has only just slowed." The man's accent was thick, but his words were warm and friendly sounding. "I wonder that you haven't bled to death. Even a greater wonder that you can speak," said the man. The cadence of his words, and the brief hesitations before certain phrases came out, more than his accent, told Zack that this wasn't his native language. 

Blearily, Zack forced one eye open and managed to croak, "Cloud?" _'Sweet Bahamut, please, please let Cloud be okay, please...'_ He struggled to sit up, only to have large, gentle hands attempt to press him back into the grass. They were hardly a hindrance. After all, they were only human. And Zack was just coming to accept that _he_ wasn't, anymore. 

"The blond?" asked the kind stranger, the strain in his voice indicating how hard he was trying to push Zack back down. "He is same as before. Although, with that terrible fever, I was amazed that he made it so far from where you left him," the man sighed, and though his voice was still strained, he sounded vaguely amused at the same time. Zack relaxed under the hands and allowed himself to be moved. 

"Good," Zack replied breathily. He blinked his one open eye and finally managed to crack the other one open. The face that hovered over his was a dark, rich olive color with narrow, charcoal black eyes. The man's face would have been plain, but for a deep scar that crossed the bridge of his nose in a deliberately even manner. In spite of this, his expression was just as mild and pleasant as his voice. 

"You really shouldn't move," the man insisted, ruefully shaking his head. "By the time I reached you, you were already full of holes." As if to deny the severity of said wounds, the man let out another wet sounding chuckle before breaking off into weak coughing interspersed with wheezing inhalations. On closer inspection, Zack's Good Samaritan was in obviously poor health. The warm skin tone had an unhealthy undertone of gray that showed around the edges of his mouth and eyes. 

Zack jerked upright again, remembering one of his dream fragments. "Hey! You're that ninja-guy, Moon Crescent some... Oh _Kjata_..." He dropped back to the ground, resisting the nearly overwhelming urge to curl into a ball and die. "Kjata's overcompensating elemental affinities..." he cursed and whimpered, somehow managing to lift a hand and cover his face with it. "How come I'm alive if I feel like this?" 

"Moon Crescent?" asked the man, in a tone that was almost too pleasant. "I am sorry, but I think I don't know what this is. Perhaps you should stay laying down? You don't wish to cause your body further harm." 

"Crescent Unit," Zack corrected himself. "You're that guy from the Crescent Unit, right? Why are you helping me?" 

* * *

Iruka frowned down at the unnaturally bright blue eyes, just a shade away from having a violet hue, which stared up into his own, curiously devoid of emotion. His face, in contrast to the empty looking eyes, was very mobile, full of quick smiles that faded into pained winces that disappeared almost as soon as they appeared. When his expression stilled, he looked nothing more than intent, and it raised the hairs on the back of Iruka's neck. The man was obviously not a shinobi; he seemed more like a samurai. 

And he asked Iruka a question; one that left him rather uncomfortable. He wasn't sure why he had chosen to help the man, other than that he didn't like to see odds like that. So Iruka replaced the slightly worried frown on his face with a sly smile, and introduced himself instead. "Iruka," he stated, eyes narrowing on the other man's pale face. The focused look didn't change. "That would be my name," he clarified, uncertain if he had actually needed to say it. "I am unfamiliar with this 'Crescent Unit' of yours. As such, I am certain that I have no affiliation with them." 

The man blinked and his face regained mobility with a downward turn of the lips, and a slight furrowing of his brow. "Iruka, is it? Sounds Wutanese," he sighed, eyes drifting away from Iruka's face and narrowing. His eyes were too bright, too wide, to narrow properly, Iruka noted even as the man's mouth quirked once more into a smile. "To be fair..." an almost silent laugh "...my name's Zack. If you haven't already figured it out," and the newly named Zack's eyes drooped to half-mast, "the blond guy's Cloud." 

That was obvious, for several different reasons. First, Zack had asked after Cloud when he had first woken up; second, well... Iruka had been following them for a couple days, and Zack had talked to the blond a lot. This wasn't something he planned to tell the blue eyed man, though. Non-shinobi often tended to find the ways of shinobi to be invasive and creepy; normal folk tended to think of them as stalkers, which was not entirely untrue. If Zack had been a shinobi, Iruka might have mentioned it, because other shinobi usually understand the reasoning that leads to these things. "Perhaps you should rest?" 

"My pack," Zack muttered, starting to sit up again. Iruka winced when the man's eyes flared wide from pain. "Gya... Give me Shiva's icy nails any day... I just want my freakin' pack..." Putting his hands on Zack's shoulders in an attempt to push him gently back to the ground, Iruka found him to be just as immovable as before. The effort was wasted, and Iruka was left panting weakly. 

"If you lay back down, I will get it," he murmured, grimacing as more red stained the off-white of the bandages he had used on Zack's hole-riddled torso. Zack relaxed against his hands almost immediately, once again allowing himself to be rearranged against the ground, just like last time. When he pulled back, blank blue eyes focused intently on him again. How could he do anything but back down from a stare like that? It was quite unnerving. 

Moments later, strong looking, milky white hands, with thick sword calluses, plucked at the innards of the pack, and eventually pulled out a tiny vial, full of a strange, glowing aqua colored liquid. Iruka didn't quite manage to intercept it as the man opened it and downed it. The pain eased from his features and he sighed, "Thank Bismarck's incorporeal ass..." Tiny sparks lifted from his skin and he twitched before squinting up at Iruka. After a silent moment he grinned. "Now it's your turn." 

One of Zack's hands, glimmering faintly with silvery, electric looking sparks, rose toward him; the other hand pressed two fingers to Zack's forehead and Zack's mouth moved in what sounded like an incantation of some sort. " _Lunim impurum treces: impertus et rene in rendes..._ " The hand reaching for Iruka was covered in a strange green light that stretched between it and him. Iruka was too surprised to even think about evasion. 

Suddenly, physically, he felt a lot better. The ache in his lungs and the persistent urge to start hacking disappeared entirely. Iruka's hackles rose again and he reached back to smooth the hairs on the back of his neck. 

Zack looked a little like a puppy that felt like it deserved kudos; therefore it was obvious that whatever it was that he'd done, it wasn't something that he felt to be distinctly unusual. In fact, after a moment, the brunet laughed, still sounding tired, but absurdly gleeful. "That should help. It won't fix everything, but that cough was sounding pretty bad." 

_'Healing jutsu,'_ Iruka surmised, still trying to sooth his hackles. He had never heard of any sorts of jutsu that required vocalizations before, though... 

* * *

Whatever it was that the ninja had dosed him with, it left Zack a little woozy, with a hardcore case of the munchies; sadly, he had nothing with which to satisfy this. Even so, he felt a damn sight more coherent than he had when he had initially awoken. The ninja ("Iruka", as the man had said, and it didn't even seem like a real name; after all, what mother would name her son "dolphin"? though, the Wutanese were an odd lot) seemed more and more ill at ease with their shared situation. 

"One would think," Iruka eventually sighed, "that at some point they will notice that their army is dead, and they will be looking for you." A thin eyebrow arched underneath his strange ninja headgear (it looked like a bandana, but with a metal plate in the front that bore a swirling leaf shaped symbol - not the same as the symbol the Crescent Unit members bore) as the ninja frowned. 

"Yes, yes, yes, I get it. We need to get moving, quickly, far and away from here, and soon," Zack replied tiredly. In spite of the elixir that had brought up his mana reserves, Curaga was a spell that kicked your mental ass if you didn't have the concentration for it. He kept his materia very well maintained, and he had a very healthy reserve of mana to begin with, but that wasn't enough; especially since Zack had been living at an exhausting pace ever since escaping Nibelheim. "And I have to get to Midgar." It didn't matter what the ninja said; Zack Fair, SOLDIER First Class, was not one to be dissuaded once he set his mind on a course of action. 

"Is that not where they expect you to go?" Iruka replied, sounding just as tired as Zack felt. The Curaga should have helped his exhaustion, too, but apparently had barely scratched the surface of it. Zack had to give him credit, though; he was doing a fairly decent impression of "harmless". No "dead" First would ever fall for it, though. Having seen as much as he had, Zack would probably have a hard time underestimating anyone's capacity for being a "danger" ever again. 

He thought that maybe Hojo had destroyed that part of him, the part that could look over a skinny scientist and not even evaluate them for their capacity to harm him. "In my situation," Zack murmured, putting a finger through one of the many new holes his shirt sported, "no one in their right mind would be going to Midgar." There was something under his shirt, just above his belt, that was making his skin itch and he frowned, patting at his waist. Perhaps he'd gotten burrs in there, or something. He wiggled a little, uncomfortable. Either way, he definitely needed a new shirt. His belt and harness he could fix, but his shirt was beyond repair. Zack figured that he'd be better off without the shirt; but then the harness would chafe. Dried blood smelled really bad after even a few hours, and he found himself hoping that it would rain again soon, and hard. He felt gross. 

Black eyes focused intently on him as he fidgeted with his clothes, until he looked up to meet the man's eyes again. Iruka's unique accent was a welcome distraction. "If they sweep the area between here and there, it would be awkward, would it not? Should make it look like you chose a different direction." A curious stare met his, and the man's jaw jutted forward stubbornly. 

Zack wasn't sure how he felt about Iruka's throwing his lot in with him and Cloud, though. "That's the thing..." he sighed as the rain blessedly started up again, rinsing the blood and soot from his and Iruka's faces. He shrugged off his harness, thinking of pulling his shirt off to rinse in one of the rivulets starting to swell again with the rain. When Cloud mumbled something barely audible, Zack paused, staring at him and hoping for further signs of life. When the blond stayed still and silent, he continued with what he had been doing. "Anyway, there's really nowhere else _to go_. The only ground level access points are guarded, and you need keycards to access them... City ordinance, you know. Only other place to go is Kalm, and without a vehicle, that would take forever. Besides, that's where we came from. They _know_ that." 

Iruka was still watching him curiously when the shirt came off, raising an eyebrow when small mushroomed metal pieces fell out of his shirt, telling Zack exactly what it was that had been making him itch so. Elixir was a strange thing. Sometimes it helped with bullet wounds, sometimes it didn't; Zack was grateful that this was one of the times that it had pushed the bullets out instead of sealing them in. It was possible that he would eventually metabolize the bullets, but in the meantime it would be rather uncomfortable; like calcium deposits until the mako in his blood was able to wear them down. "What about not ground level?" 

Zack laughed, ducking his shirt in the water and wrung it out. The water that came out was less clear and more a dark red. He made a disgusted noise and dipped it again. "Getting in and out of Midgar, without IDs, 'cause you gotta know, me and Cloud, our IDs are compromised, and I don't know about you, but they'd probably give you suspicious looks just seeing you... Anyway, it would be possible, but hard. Not going through one of the eight major gates? I don't know about you, but I can't scale mile-high walls and stay invisible, and then there's Cloud..." He let go of his shirt with one hand, and rubbed his forehead. "I've got to reiterate: Why are you helping us? Most Wutanese folks have reason to hate me." 

The ninja looked like he had no idea what Zack was talking about. "Wutanese? What is this?" He sounded pretty damned uncomfortable to, and Zack's eyes narrowed on him. Dark skin, dark, nearly black eyes and hair, and a _ninja_ besides: How could he not be Wutanese? Even his name sounded Wutanese. 

"Never been to Midgar?" he asked in a conversational tone and wasn't surprised to see a headshake in response. "Are you from Mideel?" Iruka shook his head again. "Icicle Inn, maybe?" This time Iruka didn't even bother to reply. "You don't seem like the kind of guy that would come from Costa del Sol," and oh how he hated that place, "and people from places like Gongaga and Nibelheim are notoriously pale, as are the folks from Banora... So where are you from?" 

Iruka just shrugged helplessly in response, and Zack wondered if the man just didn't remember, or didn't want to tell him. Treating Wutai as an unfamiliar name... Perhaps he had a severe case of amnesia? That... would be pretty damned severe. Wutai is just one of those household names, unlike Gongaga, which usually got a confused head scratch whenever he mentioned his hometown to anyone. 

Zack let out a loud huff, and wrung out his shirt again. "Maybe we could take the sewers. Avoid the monsters and we'd be fine..." 

* * *

Getting Zack to move again didn't prove difficult. Iruka wasn't quite sure what kind of conclusion the man had come to about Iruka's origins, but he'd stopped pestering Iruka about it almost immediately. Iruka wasn't sure if he should worry about it or not, but Zack seemed to deem his company acceptable enough to travel with. It was growing more and more difficult to hide his ignorance, however, on certain subject matters: such as materia; the shape of the world; Shinra; mako; motor vehicles; guns; SOLDIER (this one had gotten an incredulous look); and a bunch of other things that Zack seemed to be taking in stride now, like monsters. 

Zack was as sharp as Shikamaru, but far better at hiding it; although Iruka was unsure as to why he would. 

It was a few days before Iruka gave in to the suspicious looks cast through hooded eyes, and finally started asking questions. "I must admit," he eventually began, with improving capability in the language Zack spoke and a deliberately false smile, "I have absolutely no idea where we are." His skin crawled when his charcoal dark eyes met with Zack's and their expressionless azure color. 

"I knew that," the man huffed with a vaguely amused smile. His eyes didn't reflect the smile; they never seemed to show anything of what Zack was thinking. "Are you going to tell me where you're from? And maybe why you helped us?" He patiently directed his blond companion down a steep slope without allowing him to lose footing. The blond's eyes, just as bright as Zack's and far emptier, were lowered to the ground without any indication that he actually saw it. 

"Very far away, I suspect," he replied, arching an eyebrow and hopping from one steady rock to another, keeping himself from slipping with liberal application of chakra. "So far away and isolated that I haven't any reason to understand what I'm doing here, much less why I helped you; but I like to think of myself as an honorable man..." His smile grew easier. "I also tend to stick to my decisions, once made." 

The bright blue eyes disappeared behind a curtain of raven black hair that was swept into Zack's face by the rain. He shook his head violently, trying to dislodge it, but eventually used his free hand to clear his face. "I guess I can understand that." The words alone wouldn't have sounded sincere, but there was something about the way he said it that said that he really did understand that kind of honor... much to his regret. 

"Before," Iruka prodded, slipping slightly on the slope, trying to get closer to Zack, "when you healed me. What was that?" He grinned nervously at Zack's surprise. 

"Ah... Curaga," the man replied, shaking his head again to remove the hair that was getting in his eyes. "You didn't recognize the words?" One hand ran through rain-slicked hair, making it stand straight up and back. "I mean, most folks don't actually know the meaning of the words, but they can usually recognize the beginning and know what they're hearing. Loosely translated, the Curaga spell is: _'Healing Light, I implore thee, thrice over; take this of me and renew that which was torn'_." 

That was not exactly what Iruka meant, but it was interesting in spite of that. "But what is it taking?" 

The look on Zack's face, pursed lips, knitted brow, spoke of his bemusement. "Energy," he finally replied. "What else would it be taking?" 

"So... Magic chant?" asked Iruka, still grinning. Cocking his head in Zack's direction and hoping that Zack would say more. 

The brunet snorted, eyes narrowing on the poor excuse for a road that they were currently traversing. "I said something like that, once, to Professor Hojo. He chewed me out. See, 'magic' is merely a word used by 'common' people to describe what they don't understand. Though, 'common' must seem like magic to Hojo, because I'm sure as hell that he doesn't understand it." He laughed, a sharp, harsh bark of laughter, before nudging Cloud back toward the cliff face. "We should let him rest a while." 

* * *

Apparently, the ninja didn't know jack diddly about materia. It was doubtful that he even knew the word, so Zack spent about half an hour telling Iruka about the various healing materia that he knew of, while Iruka listened with the utmost rapturous attention. It was kind of creepy, just how interested in the inner workings of materia Iruka was, and unfortunately for Zack, Zack knew enough about it to tell him more than he had ever wanted to hear come out of his own mouth in a non-classroom setting. "Look, materia sciences might be my specialty, but you really should go to school for this kind of thing..." 

Iruka just grinned as they settled Cloud into a niche in the cave they had found. Zack worked at finding enough dry materials for a lasting fire, and Iruka gathered the dead grass that had accumulated in part of the cave, likely due to the wind. "What is that language?" 

"Cetra," Zack replied stiffly, kicking a large, dry bone toward Iruka. "Most people know a little of the language, through exposure to people using materia around them. Use that," he ordered. "It should burn really well once it gets started." He had an armload of sticks to help ensure that the dried out bone would burn. "The grass wouldn't be that necessary, you know. It'll help it burn hotter, though, I guess." 

"Bones don't burn well," Iruka observed, but seemed to be willing to humor Zack. 

They didn't, Zack knew, but that just meant that it would burn longer. He pushed a little bit of mana into the green ball in his hand and dropped it into the nest of grass Iruka had made. Something this simple didn't require an incantation. The Fire wouldn't be able to contain itself in the midst of easily inflammable materials. Iruka jumped back from it when it lit up quickly, and ate through all the grass and then the sticks before settling in for the long term with the bone, which Zack thought might have come from a Behemoth, or something. "And now we dry our clothes," Zack said brightly. 

Shortly afterwards they were all, including Cloud, in their altogether, clothes hung around the merrily burning bone. Silence wasn't destined to last, of course, because Iruka had more questions. "Why are they chasing you, anyway?" 

"Because we're dangerous," Zack replied, with a touch of irony in his tone. "Who cares that we're dangerous because we were made to be. Forget _how_ we were made to be, and by who. We're dangerous," he dropped backward onto his back, and pressed his knuckles into his eyes to stave off bitter tears, "so we have to die. Not that _I_ agree with that verdict. They'll have a hard time getting me to." 

"I see that," Iruka replied dryly. "I don't think that losing an army to that monstrous sword of yours would make them back off?" 

"They were sniping at us long before that... Does Cloud look dangerous to you?" Zack understood that _he_ was dangerous. That didn't give him an urge to go off and die, though. "He can barely move at all. Maybe you could take him and... Nevermind." Suicide wasn't in his nature. It was one thing, when death was imminent and unavoidable, but he was starting to think that they might actually have a chance. 

"No, he seems quite... delicate right now." Iruka had changed the word right before it came out, and while Zack was glad, he still wondered what Iruka had been intending to say. "You, however, are quite obviously a dangerous man." 

"I used to be the nice one," Zack confided, his eyes drifting shut. "These past few years have sucked royally." Iruka made a sound that indicated that he'd be willing to listen if Zack wanted to keep talking. Zack felt loquacious. "That fucking lab..." he sighed. "You wouldn't understand without background, though; I'm just not quite sure how far back to go. What do you think?" 

"I suppose that you should go as far back as possible," the ninja murmured encouragingly. There was something mildly disturbed about the tone, though. 

"There was a rush of cold air and a big man who was far too interested in what was between my mother's thighs smacked me on the ass and said 'It's a boy'." 

"Nice," Iruka exclaimed. "To the point; I understand exactly where we are. It's a good beginning. However... you might want to start a little later than that. I don't think we'll have time for your whole life..." 

"Aww... Not even potty-training stories?" Zack asked, grinning, though his eyes were still closed. 

"It's just not the same without pictures," replied Iruka, chuckling. "Do continue." 

Zack composed his face and his thoughts. "Do you know anything about age regulations in the Shinra military? No, you wouldn't, would you?" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're supposed to be an adult on entry, but we Gongagans have a few weird rules about adulthood. In some backwater areas, you're considered an adult at sixteen, but in Gongaga, it's not an age that makes you an adult. By our laws, there's a certain rite of passage that we have to complete, and that's a story for another time. Let's just say that I was legally an adult at fourteen." 

"That's a large difference," Iruka murmured. 

"Yeah, well, ninety percent of all SOLDIERs come from backwater areas. The mako isn't as hard on your system if they get you young enough." He tapped his fingers on his chin, thoughtfully. "So I applied for SOLDIER at fourteen; I wanted to see the world, be a hero and all that rot. They gave all of the new recruits similar tests, but I passed with flying colors. It's all about adaptability." Zack turned his head to glance over at Iruka. The ninja looked a little perturbed, but that wasn't very surprising. "Enhanced with mako, and only fourteen; then there was a training mission, which all newbie Thirds have to do..." 

Iruka nodded, his eyes clouded over as he turned the story over in his head. He motioned for Zack to continue. 

"It's a stupid mission, but it has its purpose. New SOLDIERs are a danger to themselves and others. In the early days of the SOLDIER project there were some very horrifying things that happened, because it throws your metabolism all out of whack, and when you come out of that tube for the first time, you're burning through calories like no tomorrow, and you're just starving..." Zack stopped for a moment, feeling vaguely green as he thought about what had happened to too many of those first SOLDIERs. The ninja looked a little green too. It was obvious that he had figured out what Zack was getting at. "So, there's a special mission for newbie Thirds. I ah, finished in record time, due to my background, and then..." He laughed. It was awful, but every time he remembered his first mission as a SOLDIER, he had to laugh. 

"Yes?" asked Iruka, intrigued at what could draw out a laugh so quickly after the previously avoided subject. 

"Well, they had these specially trained cactuars, and the mission is to capture it... I ah..." Zack laughed again. "Sorry, but... I couldn't help myself. It was supposed to take weeks, but I caught the damned thing in only a few days, and I was still so hungry that I ate it." 

That startled an answering chuckle from Iruka. "Really?" 

Zack shook his head, still mildly bemused at the memory. "I had to help train a replacement for it. So, I was one of the youngest people to ever join SOLDIER... but after that, I was _the youngest_ to ever reach Second Class. I had a special mentor. He was... famous, among other things; a bit of a stiff, but... He was a great man. The Wutai War was still in full swing when I was sixteen, and I was excited to get a mission over there. I got... compliments that I now know weren't compliments from the director..." 

Iruka seemed content to wait as Zack pondered that memory. What was it Lazard had said? _"You are a truly frightening individual."_ Zack had been tickled by the "compliment", but now, thinking about it, his stomach clenched in a sick sort of way. 

"I didn't really understand back then, that SOLDIER was that much different than everyone else. When the director said what he did, he was saying that he was afraid of me." Zack frowned up at the stone above his head. "Afraid of _me_ ; afraid of 'Zack the Puppy'; he was afraid of a _child_." 

With a shuffling sound, Iruka moved over to sit with him. The contact of bare skin against his was comforting, in a strange way. "Great power in the hands of a child is something that even great men have good reason to fear." 

Zack pondered that for a moment. It made sense, he guessed. "I was naïve," he finally replied. "One of the generals defected at about that time. There were these monsters that looked like him showing up everywhere, attacking things. I still can't figure out some of the things Genesis was up to. I was never afraid, though. I didn't know what fear was at the time." 

"A powerful child," Iruka murmured, looking down at him, "who doesn't understand fear? I would have been terrified of you." The look he was giving Zack was a searching one, like he wasn't sure if he understood Zack correctly. 

"You have a point," Zack agreed. "It's hard to think of it that way, though." He frowned still, because whether or not Lazard's fear was understandable, it was still a blow to Zack's pride. "I just followed my orders. It wasn't until Angeal defected as well that I started to question things. It was only months after Genesis's defection. Then there were the monsters with Angeal's face. It was freaking me out. A lot. He was... supposed to be better than that." Zack shook his head and closed his eyes. "What do wings mean to you?" 

Silence, for a moment, then Iruka sighed. "The freedom to fly; I've never flown, though. Family history; the Uminos are supposed to be descended from crow tengu." He was quiet for a little bit after that, but Zack felt that he wasn't quite done. "Death; information; spies..." 

"You have a more complicated view of it," Zack noted. "Angeal just thought that it made him a monster. They were lopsided, but he could fly with them, and he could fly well. But he said... All SOLDIERs are like this, on some level. Not human. In the end, he made me kill him. I don't think I'll ever forgive him for that." Iruka was silent, waiting. "Nibelheim was four years ago. The third general, Sephiroth... Well, I wouldn't say that he defected; more like 'he went ape-shit bonkers' and... he burned down the town. Me and Cloud... we were left for dead." 

Zack twitched slightly, surprised, when Iruka's hand threaded into his hair in a deliberately soothing manner and began kneading. 

A soft sigh escaped. "A certain mad scientist, and I'm not naming names, took us in; kept us alive; kept us in mako tanks, and Cloud, he was normal before this, so... I think that's why he's so sick. We only escaped what? Months ago? I don't even know how many. I forgot what my PHS said, when we first got out. I had another run in with Genesis. I don't even know if he's still alive. It's no wonder that the army nearly got me. I'm so freaking tired..." 

* * *

Iruka clamped down on his body's natural inclinations. It was no wonder these Shinra people were scared enough of this man to send a whole army after him. Just what he had seen before he leapt in to help was terrifying. The fact that Zack had been already dying when the army reached him, via sheer exhaustion and malnutrition, and he still managed to utterly decimate a good ninety-five percent of them, was terrifying. Fake-Midara and Kabuto had nothing on this man; they relied on armies of the dead and an even more plentiful army of clones. Zack was his own army. 

He had almost blocked out that image of Zack, life draining away, yet lifting that sword again and again. And that was another thing that freaked Iruka out, though only a little. He tried to pick that sword up once and barely managed to lift the hilt an inch off of the ground. A dying man, worn to the bone, still managed to lift, and fight with, that monstrous blade. Iruka didn't give out any indications of his thoughts, even though his pulse was racing, and just continued to rub a soothing pattern into Zack's scalp. 

The way Zack was looking at him, though, indicated that he knew that there was something amiss. "You too?" he asked with a tired smile. Iruka blinked, not sure what had given away his feelings. "With your hand so close, I can hear your pulse," Zack said ruefully. "The mako enhances a little bit of everything; senses, strength, speed, and supposedly, mental acuity; haven't seen proof of the last one, though." 

"How old are you?" Iruka evaded, licking his lips and looking away from Zack's eerily expressionless eyes that seemed to glow brightly in the firelight. 

"Before Nibelheim I was eighteen," Zack said sadly. "Counting the time I missed there, I must be twenty-two. I might be twenty-three, though." 

"Might?" asked Iruka, quirking his lips and an eyebrow in inquiry. 

"I don't know the date. My birthday might have passed. I don't know." Zack shrugged, and Iruka wondered if this was what it was like talking to one of Orochimaru's victims; an insanely powerful victim, but a victim nonetheless. It was obvious that the man... boy, really, if what he said was right... It was obvious that he was damaged in a way. Those eerie looking eyes showed a tiny hint of what Zack might be feeling, and Iruka hurt for him, even as he was afraid of him. Underneath the power and blood and pain, Zack was still a little boy who needed comfort. That showed in the naivety that allowed Zack's mouth to tell his story with such painful honesty. 

To Iruka, a trained shinobi, in seemed unthinkable to just spill his guts like that, but Zack... just needed someone to hear him and be willing to be near him. Iruka could do that. Cloud was close against Zack's other side, so Iruka just laid down where he was, despite the tremor inside that told him not to. Zack's skin was feverishly warm. Even though the fire was warming the cave, it was still rather cool without proper clothing, and Zack's heat was certainly welcome. "Sleep," he told Zack. "You're too tired to keep watch in your normal fashion, so let me take first watch." 

"You'll fall asleep," Zack replied, nearly inaudible. He was already half asleep. 

Zack was probably right. 

* * *

"Mako addiction, you call it?" Iruka made an odd gesture, tugging at his damp and spiky ponytail, his dark eyes locked on Zack's mako bright ones. "I don't think I know what that is... There are some minor remedies that I could try. Nothing that would be harmful if it failed to help, of course," the man smiled an odd, wide smile that would do his namesake proud. "Would you mind?" he asked. There was something in the way his eyes were narrowed that seemed almost sinister. 

Zack frowned thoughtfully but nodded his consent. Ever since the night in the cave, Iruka had been acting differently. He was pretty sure that Iruka wasn't that old, but the ninja had taken on an almost paternal demeanor. He didn't want to say so, but it kind of bothered him; especially since, when Iruka had dropped down to lie next to him, he'd really wanted to kiss the man, even though he'd only known him for about a week. It was weird and made him uncomfortable, having someone that he wanted to kiss treat him in a fatherly way. 

Iruka's hands flashed through a series of hand signals that Zack memorized without thinking about. It was unfamiliar, therefore worth remembering. The wide grin faded into a frown of concentration as whatever he was doing occupied most of his thought processes. Long before he was done, Zack had begun the slow process of biting through his bottom lip, trying to fight down the urge to jitter. The longer Iruka's hands wove through the strange signals, however, the worse the urge became. 

When Cloud groaned softly, Zack nearly dropped the materia he had been fidgeting with. Cloud had barely made a single sound in days. "Cloud?" he questioned, his eyes widening as he leaned toward the petite blond. Cloud's eyes, bright and empty like the summer sky, strayed toward him. The blond looked confused. "Are you alright?" he asked insistently, wriggling closer. 

Bright pools blinked, once, twice, and Cloud's eyebrows knit together. "Za...ack?" he asked, his voice crackling slightly. "Where..?" And his eyes lost focus, dimming again. Awareness faded quickly, and his head rolled to the side again. 

"Shit," Iruka cursed, and Zack's eyes darted to him. While he had been focused, moments before, he'd looked quite pleasant, but now he looked properly pissed. "I almost had it," he hissed, pulling his weird headband off to scrub his hand through bangs that were just as ratty as his ponytail was getting. He glared into Cloud's unconscious visage. "And you!" He prodded Zack sharply in the shoulder. "Haven't you ever been told to be still when other people are trying to concentrate?" Iruka sat back with a loud huff. "I really wish I had paid more attention to the healing arts." 

"What was that? What you did, it seemed to do something, and nothing I've tried has done _anything_. Not even Esuna," Zack sighed. 

Iruka's glare transferred to him, but otherwise the man kept his peace. "Esuna? Another magic spell of yours?" An eyebrow arched wryly; for once it was clearly visible as Iruka's headband thing was in his hands. "Show me." 

Zack clutched the Heal materia in his hand, and focused on the spell he wanted. He gently pressed his empty right hand against Cloud's forehead, and raised the materia in his left hand up to his own. It wasn't a necessary gesture, but it did help concentration. " _Etus Spiritus impurum; impertus et spiritus sec un di._ " He let his eyes drift shut as mako green washed through his vision. He wasn't sure why he was so disappointed when the spell had no effect, just like all of the other times he had cast it. 

The ninja appeared interested though. He prodded at Zack's shoulder. "Let me see that." His extended fingers twitched urgently, like Iruka couldn't wait to hold the materia. 

"The materia?" queried Zack, handing it over without qualm. "Sure, whatever." 

"And this allows you to do what?" The glare was gone, replaced by nothing more than childish curiosity. "Materia... Are all of these materia?" He held the brightly glowing green ball to the light. "You just say whatever it was that you said..?" 

Zack chuckled, a small smile coming back to his face. "No. There's a lot more to it than that. You have to actually understand the meaning of the spell. Most people, when they cast, only know the words for the duration of the spell. It's theorized that that's why we need materia to use magic. Knowledge of the Ancients and all that..." He rolled his shoulders and prodded at Iruka. "Give." 

Though he looked disappointed, Iruka returned the materia. "How do you access this 'Knowledge of the Ancients'?" 

"Concentration," Zack replied, amused. "Focus and knowledge of what you have to give up when you cast... and the ability to pay the price." With a flick, Zack spun the orb on the end of a finger. "Technically, if I had to, I could cast this spell sixty-six times non-stop, if my throat didn't give out first. You..." He concentrated on his Libra for a moment, allowing it to warp the way he saw the world. He quickly did the math, and then continued, "You could cast it thirteen times. At least, if you knew what you were doing, you could." 

"How about the Curaga?" asked Iruka. "How many times could you cast that?" 

"Thirty-eight times," he replied, frowning thoughtfully. "You might manage seven." 

"What did the words mean, this time?" 

Zack grimaced at him and sighed. In spite of his supposedly never ending patience, he never had wanted to be a teacher. The only person Zack knew that would be patient enough to deal with Iruka's incessant questions would have been Angeal. " _'Undoer's Spirit, I implore thee; take this of me and spirit's woe begone.'_ Best I can do anyway. The speech pattern is archaic, because what I studied was written several hundred years ago. Not many people seem keen on translating it, anymore." 

Iruka made a strange noise in his throat and his head cocked to the side, birdlike. "So you study a long dead language... one that you would be able to speak anyway, for as long as you had these materia, for what purpose?" Eyebrows knit together, and he frowned at Zack. "You hardly seem the scholarly type." 

Even having fielded that question, in various forms, over a hundred times before, Zack still had a hard time answering it. Usually, the question was being proposed by another SOLDIER, such as Kunsel. "Everyone in SOLDIER has an area that they study," he began, and scratched the back of his neck. "The generals each studied engineering, botany, and physics, respectively, and most people wouldn't figure them for the sort of men who would have gone for a doctorate either... much good as it's doing any of us now. I like materia, and when I was younger, I wanted to know what I was saying. Now I know what I'm saying." 

Iruka checked Cloud's fever distractedly. "How do you get materia?" 

"All sorts of places," Zack replied absently. "How is he?" 

"Better?" Iruka asked, then confessed, "I'm not sure what good it's done him. But I thought I should try..." He eyed the green orb in Zack's hand, looking like he was about to say something else, but cut himself off. "Where would _I_ get them?" 

Zack snorted at the look that was starting to seem a little covetous. "They're everywhere, believe me. Most people just aren't capable of using them, so don't know much about them, but Shinra manufactures them, and some places it seems like they're coming out of people's ears, even though they don't often occur naturally." He slapped the Heal back in its place in the Buster Blade. 

Iruka seemed disappointed that he put it away. 

* * *

"I hate snipers," Zack groaned as they disposed of the bodies of six snipers several hours after their discussion about materia. 

Iruka understood the sentiment. He also finally understood why Zack ducked at the sound of fireworks. That would be because they weren't fireworks. Iruka didn't think he liked guns, although he understood why a person would want to wield one. Zack had been amazed that Iruka didn't know what a gun was, and then explained in great detail the origins and uses of rifles (a particular kind of gun, like the ones wielded by the snipers, although Zack referred to them specifically as "sniper rifles") and various other types of guns, and the capabilities thereof. He was quite certain that he didn't like guns, and being in a place that had such awful weapons made him acutely uncomfortable. 

"You'd think that they were afraid to confront me face to face, or something," Zack grumbled halfheartedly. 

Having seen him dodge these explosion propelled projectiles, Iruka was more set to wondering why they _bothered_ with them... Unless they didn't know the full extent of what Zack was capable of. There was no way that Zack had seen it coming, yet... They raided the bodies for useful items, and Iruka was delighted to find that several of them had been carrying materia that Zack didn't seem to want to bother with. 

"Have at," Zack declared cheerfully. "I already have as many as I need, so no worries." He was more interested in the food that they carried, and Iruka understood that, he really did, but a childish glee filled him at collecting five glowing orbs from the downed snipers. He would be hard pressed to explain the joy he felt, stuffing the glowy things into his pockets. It wasn't like he knew what they did, so later, he asked Zack. 

The gold one, Zack told him, was an Enemy Skill materia. It was useless until its bearer had been attacked by certain monsters that did certain things and did those certain things to its bearer. The explanation was mildly confusing. There was a purple one that Zack had made sure he equipped right away, telling him that it was literally a moneymaker and then failed to explain how so. There was a blue one that Zack told him was All, and had to be paired with another materia to be of any use, and two green ones. The first of the two was Poison, which had Iruka perking up right away, while the second was Seal, which Zack had to explain further. The only spell in it was Sleep, he was told, but if he gave it time, it would grow and gain a spell called Silence. 

Zack was amused at his behavior and helped him set it up so that he might be able to use them at some point. He took a bangle that had empty slots in it and put all of Iruka's materia in it, pairing the All with the Seal, specifically, though again not explaining why. 

Then they set about cleaning themselves up, as the disposal of the snipers had been dirty work. 

* * *

About ten hours later, getting toward evening on an unusually dry day, something large and nasty came from above. Zack was able to stash Cloud before setting into hacking the monsters to pieces, and Iruka managed to misfire a Sleep spell and nearly knock Zack out with it. He shook the fogginess from his brain and continued slashing, glad of the ribbon he wore high up on his bicep. 

Remembering the All that had been attached to the Seal materia, Zack made his way over to where Iruka was, unconscious on the ground, and kicked him lightly while killing another Ironite. He had no idea what the hell Ironites were doing so close to Midgar. "You should wait until you've practiced a little more," he said conversationally as Iruka shook his head, trying to clear it. "I'm sure that the Ironites would have been grateful if you had succeeded in knocking me out too." The last one went down with a wet thunk. "But... I think that you need some practice." 

"Did it work?" Iruka asked thickly, shaking his head again. 

"On you," Zack retorted, rolling his eyes. He poked one of the corpses with his boot and took a close look at its claws. "These don't belong here," he stated, using his foot to shove the Ironite onto its back. A metal band gleamed on one wrist. "Hah!" He pulled the paw up to read the numbers on the band. 

Iruka leaned in to read it as well. "What does this mean to you?" 

Zack was still for a moment, before pulling up the leather covering his right wrist to reveal a similar band, with a similar series of engraved numbers. Even with SOLDIER strength Zack hadn't managed to damage the damned thing. "Cloud has one too," he murmured, for the moment indifferent to Iruka's speechlessness. "All I can say for sure is that the Shinra science wing is involved... Other than that, I have no idea." He spread his hands in a defeated gesture. 

The ninja remained silent, a pained look on his face. He met Zack's gaze straight on, however, something that he had already proven to have difficulty with. It wasn't pity in Iruka's eyes, but it was getting close. Zack didn't want to see that, so he poked Iruka's nose, fast but gently. Iruka twitched violently away from the sudden touch. 

"Knock it off," Zack said, then turned to collect Cloud. And that was that. 

* * *

There was a giant bird. Great red plumes stuck straight up from it and waved gently in the breeze. It had probably been a majestic creature when it had been alive still. From the length of its legs and the thickness of its body, it had probably stood taller at the shoulder than Iruka's full height. It was a pity that it was dead, but Iruka was opportunistic enough to hope that it was fresh enough for them to eat. 

Zack confirmed it as edible when Iruka showed it to him, though he seemed sad. "It strikes a nerve," he shrugged. "I don't like the idea of eating a chocobo, but the meat is probably pretty healthy." It wasn't until they set about butchering the creature that they found out that it wasn't alone. A much smaller bird, covered in mud and muck had been hidden beneath the larger bird. Zack made a pained sound and gathered it up in his shirt. "We'll take the chickabo with us." He gave Iruka a look that dared him to argue. "If we're going to eat its mother, we may as well be properly respectful toward it." 

And respectful he was. Iruka wasn't sure what to make of it. They cooked the mother, but Zack carefully bathed the chick, which was already a lot larger than any bird Iruka had ever seen previously (discounting nin-animals and the creatures in the Forest of Death). When set loose, it stood almost waist high, and had a wicked beak that tried to tear a chunk off of Iruka's face. It missed, of course, and Iruka batted it away with the back of his hand. Zack seemed amused by its behavior, and ruefully fed it some of the meat. 

"War chocobos tend to eat a lot of meat," he said sadly. 

"Should you be allowing it to practice cannibalism?" Iruka asked, making a face that was probably comical. 

"We don't have anything else we could give it," Zack replied. "Wild chocobos in dire conditions will cannibalize their fallen, so this isn't as unnatural as it seems." 

"So will humans," was Iruka's dry response. "That doesn't make it alright." He went to try to trap local wildlife. He wasn't very hopeful though. He did find some bugs, and tried to feed them to the bird whose pink feathers fluffed up in disgust at the offering. It tried to eat his face again. " _Aku-tori!_ " he exclaimed, backhanding it again, without much force. 

" _Aku?_ " Zack asked, starting to smile again. Moping hadn't seemed like him, and it appeared that he was pulling himself out of it. "Evil." He nodded. " _Tori?_ Bird. Right. Evil Bird. What a cute name." He seemed to find the phrase delightful. " _Aku-tori_ ," he chuckled. 

The fact that Zack had understood the words was a surprise, but Iruka wasn't sure why. Zack seemed to be intelligent enough to have been willing to learn several languages. He put it from his mind though, and focused on the insects that he'd gathered. None seemed to be poisonous, so, making sure that he had the bird's attention, he said, "Fine, I'll eat them then." And to Zack's wide-eyed surprise, he bit into the largest one and swallowed it without so much as blinking. 

That was when the bird decided to show interest. It crunched up the remainder of the bugs with gusto. 

"Yum," Iruka said, trying to chase the taste of the one out of his mouth. "That was a particularly yummy one." 

"You say that like you have a grand amount of experience in the area of eating bugs," Zack snorted. "Clever, though. It wouldn't be a bad thing for _Aku-tori_ to start eating insects; probably the only reliable food source out here." 

Iruka shook his head and went back to the chocobo meat. "Between the Inuzukas on one side and the Uminos on the other, I probably ate more bugs as a child than real food." He huffed, watching the bird root around Cloud, possibly seeking more bugs. "I was more likely to eat bugs than candy. Still don't really care for sweet stuff. Apparently, all those bugs were good for my health, except the rare occasion I accidentally found poisonous ones. That one was sour, though, yeck." 

"I think I might have eaten a lot of bugs too, but I was a frog at the time, so I couldn't help it." Zack sounded perfectly serious, and Iruka stared incredulously. 

There was no way the brunet actually meant that. "Don't say things like that," Iruka admonished. 

Zack gave him a curious look. "Gongaga," he said, making some strange gesture, "has interesting wildlife. There are frogs that want new blood in their gene-pool, or something, and like turning the unwary into frogs. Gongaga is a little less dangerous for the frogs, so during monsoon season, a lot of people would mysteriously vanish into the forests, only to come back months later, slightly green. This is why all Gongagans keep Transform materia close at hand. You never know when you'll need it." 

* * *

Days later, _Aku-tori_ vanished. The chickabo seemed healthy enough, and Zack wasn't worried. Iruka seemed a little lost though, now that it was gone. Zack thought that Iruka had gotten attached to it. Cloud trudged alongside him, seeming to move on his own for part of it. Zack was in high spirits when they spotted the tent-town. "Hey, look," Iruka cheered, pointing down the ridge at the town. "People!" 

Zack shielded his eyes from the sun and squinted in the direction Iruka was pointing. "Yep, I see people. I always thought that the only people you saw on this side of Midgar were diehard farmers, hicks in trucks and pseudo-militia." The area around Midgar was poor for farming, but if they went any direction from the city other than south, they were bound to find arable land. Zack was able to spot all of the mentioned types of people, quickly enough. 

Before they actually got far, Iruka tugged on Zack's glove to get his attention. Possibly with another question, and Zack squirmed irritably at the idea of having to answer more questions. It was beginning to get ridiculous. "Yes?" he asked and braced himself. 

Iruka looked him up and down, taking note of the tense posture. He smirked. "I was just thinking that we should try waking Cloud before trying to rejoin humanity. You know, before we cause trouble, because I'm sure you're at least as bad as I am in strange towns." 

"I've never," Zack started, and then he stopped, frowning, thinking of all the random crap that seemed to happen to him anywhere but Midgar. "It's never my fault," he protested instead. "It's usually things like Sephiroth going crazy, everyone in town being already dead or a Behemoth coming out of the water... I hate Costa del Sol. On second thought, yeah, I have to agree with you..." 

"Ask me some time about my more interesting accidents," Iruka said, helping Zack arrange Cloud in an easy position on the ground in front of them. Zack seemed to take too much care with the smaller man, but Iruka didn't think it was his place to say so. He smacked Zack in the shoulder. "Here, hand me the Heal, I've got an idea." 

"I was going to say that you should try the same thing you did before. It's gotten the most reaction of anything so far." In spite of the protest, he handed over the materia, wondering what exactly Iruka was planning to do. 

* * *

Iruka grimaced. "As long as I aim it right, this time..." _'If I use chakra with it...'_ He knelt next to Cloud and started forming the same seals he had gone through before, this time focusing on the materia rolling across his fingers like a conjuring trick as he did so. On the final seal, Seal of the Tiger, the orb rolled to land between his hands. Zack's eyes on him did nothing to dent his concentration, nor did the younger man's incessant jittering. But when Cloud started moving, groaning in pain, Iruka's ability to concentrate abandoned him. Suddenly, he felt drained and dizzy, and out of breath. It felt like he had done far more than he thought he had. 

It took several minutes for him to regain his equilibrium, and when he did, Cloud was leaning to the side, supported by Zack, coughing up some sort of black substance that was reminiscent of rotted blood. It didn't look anything like the last time he had used ninjutsu on Cloud. Iruka suppressed his own vague queasiness, pinching his nose for something else to focus on. 

"Materia and chakra don't seem to work right, together," he muttered. After a moment, it became clear that Zack hadn't even heard the comment; strange, because of what Zack had told him about having enhanced senses. 

The younger man rubbed the blond's back vigorously, looking far more worried than Iruka had yet seen him. "It's gonna be alright, Cloud... Can you hear me? C'mon, just get in a few breaths and you'll be fine..." His voice was high in pitch, both excited and panicked at once. 

Iruka rolled his eyes and sat up, leaning forward to check Cloud's temperature with one hand and his pulse with the other. His temperature was high, yet lower than it had been; his pulse, however, was fast and erratic. He hummed quietly to himself as he rubbed his thumb back and forth across the blond's forehead in a soothing fashion. "Calm down... You too, Zack. Spazzing out isn't very helpful." He pitched his voice in a comforting tone. It seemed to work. 

The blond hacked a few more times, before lifting his head to stare back and forth between Iruka and Zack, in a confused manner. He opened his mouth, and then began coughing again. The force of the coughing eventually gave way to retching, and the foul black substance gave way to fresh red. Eventually, Cloud managed to control the retching so that it was merely his shoulders spasming as he tried to hold it in. Zack uttered that first spell, the Curaga spell and Cloud's shoulders stilled, and he sucked in a breath thankfully. 

"Perhaps," Iruka murmured thoughtfully, "we should make camp here and go down there tomorrow?" He raised his eyes to look directly into Zack's. He checked the other's pulse again, and was surprised when Cloud managed to give him a grateful look. His eyes, now that they were no longer completely empty, were less eerie, somehow, than Zack's. Iruka wondered for half a moment what that meant; he supposed that it meant that he would have an easier time looking Cloud in the eye than Zack. 

"Perhaps," Zack agreed reluctantly. "You okay, Cloud?" 

Cloud nodded, coughing weakly and very quietly asked, "Zack? Wh-where are we? What happened?" 

* * *

Zack could only bear to give Cloud the bare bones of the story. Cloud wasn't exactly a strong Shinra supporter, but the betrayal was nonetheless painful. The blond was still weak, but insisted that they go down to the encampment in spite of it, and accepted getting carried by Zack with a faint flush but no protest. Iruka didn't seem to be feeling all that well, either, but easily agreed with Cloud's decision, possibly in hope of fresh clothes and a decent meal. 

Fresh clothes were possibly more alluring to Zack than they were to either Cloud or Iruka, as his shirt was more hole than cloth, and his pants weren't much better. The idea of becoming clean was just icing on the cake. Although it turned out that the encampment didn't have running water, someone had a Watera materia that they allowed him the use of, provided he fill lots of large containers with the summoned water. 

It wasn't long before other folks came along, asking him to fill tubs of water for themselves. They ended up paying him to do so, and to heat the water with his Firaga materia. Continuously casting was exhausting, but it got the three of them new(ish), fresh(er) clothing, baths, and food. It was wonderful, and Zack felt shiny and new after he was clean and dressed in whole clothing. Decent food on his stomach made it even better. Sure, he was tired, but that wasn't anything new. 

He hadn't realized just how much he had missed _people_. Zack loved being around people; by nature, he was a very gregarious man. And although these folks had guns and stuff, they weren't being aimed at _him_ , and he was reminded that sometimes friendly people had weapons too. 

His newly clean hair was tied back in a short ponytail, and a worn, mustard yellow shirt stretched across his chest. It had an extremely faded picture on it of a man skiing, and the caption "The Hotdogger". It was ugly, but it was quite comfortable, as were the baggy jeans he'd been given. Zack had been lucky that his belt had survived, as the only guy in the tent-town that matched him inch for inch in the leg had a much thicker waist. A gaggle of girls giggled and watched as he tested the give of the cloth. The shirt was a tad bit tight, but it was worn enough that it stretched with ease. His sword harness looked slightly ridiculous with it, but he could live with that. 

Iruka's ninja clothes had been replaced as well, partly because they weren't so practical with Midgar weather. Loose grey overalls made him look younger with the addition of a dark beige and brown turtleneck sweater. The shuriken holster was high up on one leg, and Iruka had somehow gotten a fitting pair of boots from someone. Cloud was also in jeans, now; grey jean pants and an old battered black jean jacket with a grey sweater underneath. Cloud had gotten a shotgun as well, which Zack thought was a good thing. 

Much to Zack's discomfort, Iruka had taken to quietly staring at him while he tried to negotiate for more useful things from their hosts. He knew what was up with the giggling gaggle of girls; contrary to common belief, Zack wasn't quite that naïve. He knew exactly how he must look to them. But Iruka was no giggling girl, and there was something darker in that look than the one the girls wore; appreciative, but dark. Zack wasn't sure of how to deal with it, so put it out of mind, and focused on his attempt to barter for transportation. If he was lucky, he might be able to land them a vehicle. 

* * *

The new clothes were strange, but not uncomfortable. Iruka didn't care for the shoulder straps and metal latches. Overalls weren't very attractive, either, but he didn't have room to complain, even if Zack had managed to land clothes that showed off his form almost too well. The color was terrible - very few people made yellow look good, but the way the cloth stretched over his muscles had Iruka quite frankly disbelieving that Zack had in any way remained quiescent for several years. And _that_ was what looked good. Certainly, he had seen Zack shirtless previously (and naked, the one time, in the firelight), but at the time, Zack had been about as filthy as it was possible to be in the rain. 

The SOLDIER was attempting to ingratiate himself with the owner of one of those ugly carriages, and possibly trying to get them some actual supplies, and Iruka was being left at loose ends. Cloud had found a quiet corner to nap in, sitting in a position that had Iruka wincing. The blond wasn't going to wake up in anything resembling comfort, that was for sure. 

Iruka needed to find something to do before he gave in to the urge to walk over to Zack and feel his chest up or something. Exploring seemed like a good idea; it would only keep him occupied for a little while, but it might help him find something else to do. As long as he wasn't just standing in place doing nothing, because it was in times like that that he found himself having the absolute _worst_ urges. 

That was why, half an hour after he parted company with Zack, he found a corral full of monsters. It wasn't that Iruka was unfamiliar with the idea of monsters. Konoha had its fair share of them. But he was beginning to understand that his concept of monster wasn't the same as Zack's, and that these creatures in the corral were the kind that Zack meant, just like the Ironites from before. He didn't see metal bands on any of them though, and wondered if that was a good or a bad thing. 

One monster, a flame colored, floating ball of a monster, bobbed toward him, its gaping mouth open in a parody of a grin. He wondered what that one was called. It was obviously looking right at Iruka too. Iruka grinned toothily at it and it bobbed in the air almost excitedly. He chuckled; what a weird creature! 

At least he had found something suitably distracting. 

* * *

Cloud perched on the tailgate of a battered old pickup, deep in thought. His stomach was still, something that he was eternally grateful for, and neither Zack nor Iruka were anywhere in sight. Before awakening beneath their watchful eyes, he remembered very little. Sure, he remembered Nibelheim; he had nearly died in Nibelheim. _Zack_ had died in Nibelheim, Cloud had thought. 

He shuddered at the memory of Zack's body, flying through the air, landing and bouncing roughly down the steps in the reactor. Zack's eyes had been wide and empty when Cloud had fallen, sliding down the steps to land next to his friend. Dead. He had been so sure that Zack was dead. 

The blue-violet dumbapple that had been clenched in his hands nearly dropped from them, and he quickly lifted it to take a bite before he lost it. 

Instead of thinking about Nibelheim, Cloud tried to remember anything that had happened since. He could vaguely recall a cold voice speaking harshly in scientific terms that were beyond his understanding. Numbers. Monsters. Shinra. Hojo. Yeah, Cloud remembered Hojo. 

After that, Cloud remembered Zack, talking and talking, until his voice grew hoarse. Then he talked even more. Most of what Zack said, Cloud couldn't remember, until... _"I wouldn't do that to you. We're friends, right?"_ Zack had been smiling when he said that. In spite of the smile, he hadn't looked happy; he looked weary, and if there was one word that Cloud had difficulty associating with Zack, it was weary. Zack was never tired, ever, even when he walked off to face his own doom. That was another thing that Cloud remembered. He couldn't remember what Zack had been saying, but he had been talking, and then he turned... and walked away. Then there was a lot of gunfire. 

Then there was Iruka. Iruka had a nice voice, mellow in a southern sort of way. There were endless seeming discussions of common things; magic, materia, trucks, guns, chocobos, and cities such as Midgar, Mideel, Wutai... Zack explained everything in endlessly patient tones. And Iruka asked so many questions. Zack losing his patience was almost as bizarre as him being weary. 

And now, here they were in this little tent-town, still some miles on the wrong side of Midgar, and Zack was looking _alive_ again. Energetic, robust, and just about any other such word could be used to describe the image of Zack running pell-mell down the nearby steep embankment toward the rickety four-wheel drive pickup he had bartered for from the other travelers. Iruka, Cloud noted, was just behind. 

"Inside the truck!" bellowed Zack, throwing a glance over his shoulder to make sure that Iruka was still there. "Now!" 

_'That doesn't sound good,'_ he thought as Iruka leapt to join him in the back of the truck as he pulled the tailgate shut. Ignoring the other man, he crawled through the back window into the cab, even as Zack slammed the driver's side door shut. "What did you do?" he asked, bemused. 

A bark of laughter reminded him of Iruka's presence, and the man leaned in from the back as Zack revved the engine, throwing the truck into first gear. "I see he automatically assumed it was you." 

"I did nothing," Zack snapped, wild-eyed, hitting the gas and already putting it into third gear. "I _saw_ what you did, too; keep that in mind, if you would. Anyway, Cloud, it wasn't just us! The cavalry showed up, and I really need to stop thinking of them as the fucking cavalry... Hang on!" The truck careened sideways for a moment before Zack got it under control. "And would you believe, I actually thought to get gas right away, so we've got plenty? Back to the original subject though, they aren't my cavalry anymore. So wrong, if you think about it, which I sincerely don't want to..." 

"Why are we running from the army?" Cloud asked, still bemused. 

"Somewhere between escaping from the labs and getting off of the New Continent, they got called on us!" Zack sounded like his usual perky self, saying that. Even for being a SOLDIER, even for being a First Class, he was too damned perky to be saying something like that. "I don't think that they were specifically after us there... because one moment, I was talking with Mr. Hair, and next, there were monsters freakin' everywhere! It was like Costa del Sol all over again! So, yeah, we were trying to take the long way around so that they would lose us, if you know what I mean, and I'm just hoping that we were lost in the crowd..!" 

* * *

Iruka found quite quickly that he didn't like trucks. For one thing, it bounced, a lot. For another, Zack, who was supposed to be in control of the machine, didn't seem to be in control of it. "Don't worry about it," the man soothed, as though sensing the source of Iruka's ire. "We'll be on a real road soon enough." 

"When's soon enough?" he grouched, trying to hold his position with chakra. He winced anyway when his head came into contact with the roof of the cab yet again. "And how much will a road help?" 

"Road should be... just over this next hill," Zack replied, leaning sideways to check over the map in what Iruka felt was a very unsafe maneuver. "That's what the map says, this next... hill." Zack's muscles tensed to maintain his seat, and he was successful where Iruka was not. Cloud seemed unperturbed by the violent shaking and bouncing of the truck. 

Iruka was jealous. "That's not a hill," he grumbled unhappily. "That's a fucking mountain." And it was, looming over them at a nearly sixty-five degree angle from where they currently were. He wasn't so certain that the machine would be able to make it up the steep grade. Cloud just munched on a strange purple apple, as though this was a daily trial that didn't require his worry. 

"Banora White," Zack piped up suddenly, possibly reading Iruka's mind. He was looking right at Iruka, who cringed until Zack turned his attention back to ahead of them. "They're mako sensitive, so they don't grow well in most places. Banora's groves burned to the ground about five years ago, but the trees must have made a comeback, or they wouldn't have been cheap enough to purchase..." 

"Zack," Cloud interrupted, tone mild, "drive." 

Zack's mouth snapped shut, and his concentration returned more fully to the slope ahead of them, in spite of the pout that crumpled his face. "Excuse me for talking..." he muttered. 

Cloud managed to look bored as he sighed, "Zack, road. Superhuman reflexes can't make a truck do the same things they can make a motorcycle do. So pay attention, please. You can talk all you want about Banora later." Iruka could have kissed Cloud when Zack remained quiet. 

* * *

With the truck, some things had become easier, such as finding a camp site. While the pickup didn't have a camper shell, it was still possible for Cloud, at least, to sleep in the cab, which was exactly what he was doing, as he needed to recover more before Zack allowed him to burden himself with helping keep watch. Instead, Zack and Iruka, who Zack suspected needed sleep in similar increments as him (i.e., barely at all), kept watch in turn; tonight, Zack's turn was first, and Iruka had chosen to sleep huddled closer to Zack than the fire. 

In spite of the close huddle, Iruka hadn't actually fallen asleep yet, and a long hand drifted out from his blanket encased form to poke at Zack. "What happened to Banora?" he asked, his voice thick with sleep. 

"Shinra," Zack replied, shutting his eyes against the remembered image of flaming dumbapple trees. "There was only one person still living there, though." 

"Dead?" asked Iruka, yawning and shivering and scooting over until his side pressed right up against Zack's. 

"Yeah," he agreed. He had liked Angeal's mother, even if she thought of him as "Angeal's puppy". Zack bit his lip against the sudden tearing of his eyes. "The purple apples are one of those things that makes people think of Banora. I should say that they're the only thing that makes anyone think of Banora, even though that isn't really true. Mention of Genesis or Angeal will make people think of Banora too, but what I mean to say is... There was nothing in Banora but trees, and I guess that's even truer now." Silence reigned long enough that it became obvious that Iruka had finally fallen asleep, leaving Zack alone with his memories. "And a great big crater," he continued quietly, "and maybe Genesis..." He sighed. 

Iruka was easy to talk to; perhaps too easy. He literally knew nothing by which to judge Zack, which was something that Zack had sorely missed without even knowing it. Even Aerith had said something, what was it? _"I think SOLDIERs are scary. They fight and they like it."_ Something like that. Even Aerith, sweet Aerith, who hadn't even known a SOLDIER on sight by his mako eyes, had been inundated with Shinra propaganda and the hatred of the populace. 

Even as he shakily pulled out Aerith's letter, her last letter, Zack contemplated the man laying fast asleep beside him. What was Iruka going to do once they reached the city? Zack wasn't used to feeling like this, so uncertain, and for months and months, years even, although he hadn't known that until he got the letter that was crumpling in his grip, he had been so lost. 

Zack fought down the choked noise that was trying to rise in his throat and forced himself to take deep, calming breaths as the fire died, fitfully burning out the last of its fuel. He half wished that it was raining again; cool water to wash away the heat welling up at the corners of his eyes. "Fuck," he whispered and bit his lip, forcing his hands to unclench around the still folded paper gripped between them. 

* * *

Something hot dripped on Iruka's cheek, much to his confusion. The air around them was getting colder, and although the thigh he rested one cheek against was pretty warm, it was nothing like the hot, wet splatter on the other cheek. He wasn't sure what he was expecting to see when he looked up; perhaps he had forgotten, on some level, who he was curled up against. 

Zack's eyes were closed, and his face was barely visible, but Iruka could make out the faint glimmer of wetness on the younger man's cheeks and the way his lower lip was slowly being chewed through. It was hard to tell what exactly made Zack open his eyes, but Iruka was suddenly struck by all those times that he had thought he had imagined a faint glow in those azure eyes. Thick lashes did little to obfuscate the bright shine of them. 

A large hand scrubbed quickly at Zack's face, hiding the materia-like glow for a moment, and in a sheepish tone, Zack murmured almost too quietly to hear, "Sorry." 

"What are you apologizing for?" Iruka grunted, grimacing at the thickness of his own voice. "How long was I asleep?" 

"I dunno," Zack sighed. "I was thinking, so I wasn't paying attention to the time." He tilted his head back to look at the sky. "A couple of hours, I guess." He didn't look directly back down at Iruka, but the glow of his eyes was bright enough to cast faint light down his cheeks and starkly delineate the shadows of his face. 

It wasn't like Iruka hadn't already been aware of Zack's strange beauty. The eerie blankness in his eyes had been somewhat off-putting, but at the moment, Iruka was pretty sure that he wanted nothing more than for Zack to just look right at him. When Zack finally did so, a fine crinkle between his eyebrows as they drew together, Iruka didn't even try to pretend he wasn't staring. It wasn't even a surprise when Zack commented on it. 

"You're staring," Zack murmured, sounding exasperated. As though to foil Iruka's train of thought, he added, "Again." 

That meant that Iruka had been caught staring before, which was a surprise. Zack had seemed focused completely on other things at the time. "I didn't think you had noticed." The words were barely out of Iruka's mouth before he made a face at what they implied. "That sounded kind of stupid, didn't it?" 

"Sure, if you say so." He was smiling as he said it, though, so Iruka counted it as a win. "It's probably about time to actually go directly for Midgar, huh?" The words sounded somewhat apprehensive, even though Midgar was where they had been heading all along. Zack's expression, in spite of the faint smile Iruka's moment of stupidity had brought on, was slightly strained. "Not that we actually need to hurry, now." 

"And we aren't in a hurry now because... Cloud's alright, right?" When Zack nodded, hesitant, Iruka frowned. "What happens when we reach the city, anyway?" Iruka would be able to take care of himself, he was sure, but it seemed like a good idea to find out what Zack had in mind before resigning himself to surviving, alone, in an unfamiliar urban jungle. 

Zack shook his head and shrugged. "My plans aren't very specific." He blinked rapidly for a moment then looked away again. "What do you plan on doing?" The nervous clench of his jaw told Iruka that Zack had already been thinking about the possible answers to that question, and Iruka's response had great potential to distress him. 

"I'm not sure," Iruka responded honestly. "If you haven't realized by now..." A yawn interrupted the sentence, and Iruka curled until more of his body rested against Zack's warmth. "I'm more than a little lost. So I suppose I would be trying to find out how lost and how to get unlost." 

"How would you do that?" The younger man's voice was almost too quiet to hear. 

"How does one find information, most of the time? Talk to people and hope that someone has answers, and if that fails, look at documents. Midgar has a library, right?" Iruka shifted further, until Zack changed position slightly, accommodating Iruka's search for warmth. "In the meantime, we all need to survive, right?" The faint smile had grown, nearly into a grin, while Iruka had all but snuggled up to Zack. Who could blame him, anyway? He was cold. Zack was _hot_ , like a furnace. 

"I was thinking, you know, before, I was telling Cloud... Not like he could hear me, at the time, but..." Zack paused when Iruka pinched his leg. "Ow? I was thinking we could do mercenary work. There's a lot of work in Midgar for people who do that; enough that we could pick and choose, probably. Monster hunting usually pays well enough, too." 

"Monster hunting?" muttered Iruka, half asleep. "Monsters like Ironites?" 

"Yes and no," Zack replied, sighing. "Monster hunters in Midgar are more like exterminators. Outside of Midgar, the monsters are more dangerous, except..." He was quiet for a long moment, until Iruka nudged him to continue. "We're going in from below, and that's where some of the nastiest monsters in the world live. Underneath Midgar is their natural environment." 

"So we'll be going through some tough territory," Iruka surmised. Zack hummed out an agreement and dropped one hand, gently cupped, to cover Iruka's eyes. The hint was rather obvious. "Fine, fine, going back to sleep now. Wake me up in a couple hours. Should be my watch by then." 

It shouldn't have surprised him when Zack _didn't_ wake him up. Instead, he was awakened by the roar of the truck starting back up in the morning. One of the doors slammed, and Iruka jumped when booted feet appeared in front of his face. He looked up to see Zack, staring down at him, no sign on his face of another sleepless night. 

"Cloud's driving," Zack informed him, grinning. "Unless you want to try?" 

"Urgh... No," Iruka grunted and sat up. "You didn't wake me up," he accused, scowling. 

The brunet shrugged cheerfully and smothered the remains of the fire. "If you wanna sleep still, you can try in back of the truck." 

Iruka grunted again, this time without words. "I'm taking the cabin, this morning." 

Cloud's voice interrupted, before Zack could reply, with a yell. "Are we ready yet?" 

* * *

Cloud hadn't had many opportunities in the past to drive any distance. Before joining Shinra, he had lived in a town that had only one pickup. Even if it had worked, a boy like him wouldn't have had a chance to drive it, because it was the mayor's truck. It was funny, to him, that Zack expected him to know what he was doing. He could barely drive on a proper road, much less on these craggy tracks Zack had been following. 

Strangely, he wasn't having any trouble at all, as long as he left it in a low gear like he had observed Zack doing. It was easier if he ignored Zack and Iruka's conversation as well. Iruka, probably trying to relieve his nervousness with the precarious angles the truck was occasionally moving in, was telling Zack about something called "chakra". The word seemed familiar, but Cloud had to pay attention to the current track, and Zack's intermittent directions, so he really couldn't think about it. 

The rhythm of Iruka's speech sounded like that of a teacher repeating the same thing they'd said several hundred times already, and Cloud spared his attention from driving for half a second to comment on it. Iruka chuckled. "Yes, I am a teacher." He knew without looking that the man was smirking. Zack made an odd noise that indicated disbelief, stating that Iruka was a ninja. "Can't I be both? You didn't ask me what it is that I teach." 

"What do you teach?" Zack parroted obediently. 

"I teach proto-nin to become real ninjas," Iruka replied smugly. 

"Proto...nin?" asked Zack, sounding dubious. 

"When I get them, they aren't ninjas yet." 

The truck jerked and Iruka's eyes flashed to Cloud, who frowned in concentration. It was getting harder to control the steering wheel. "Where's the turn, Zack?" Cloud asked, straining against the wheel. 

"It should be right up here." The map flapped around in Zack's hands. "Ten yards or so more, is all." 

When he got there, the track flattened out, but the turn was onto what looked like it might be a real road. In spite of this, Cloud pulled over. Instead of asking to switch with one of the others, he mournfully asked, "Do we have anything that would make a decent lunch?" He turned sad eyes on Zack, who had taken up the same position that Iruka had had the previous day, sticking in halfway through the back window. 

Zack was not immune to the puppy eyes. 

* * *

"Alright, we have honest to Kirin Shinra (tm) Rations, and we won't be eating that unless absolutely necessary, and don't you ask me why... Iruka. I see that. You're about to ask me why. Don't. I'll explain at another time. We also have regular, old fashioned hard tack, which should be saved until later as well. On the bright side, that means we should eat the fresh stuff now." Zack sunnily passed said "fresh stuff" over to Iruka and Cloud before continuing. "Dumbapples, bread, cheese, peanut butter, jam..." 

"Marmalade," Cloud interrupted to insert. 

"Jam," Zack continued, "and a prickly peck of gyshal pickles. Dunno about you guys, but I love these things." 

"Ugh," said Cloud, but Iruka looked interested. "I don't know about you, but I'd like to be able to smell a Marlboro coming, you know, before it gets close enough to breathe on us." 

Zack stuck out his tongue. "You don't have to eat them." 

"Eat a whole bulb of garlic and you'd stink less," Cloud protested. 

During their argument, Iruka was cautiously opening the jar. His eyes started watering as soon as the fumes escaped. "Oh, kami-sama," he muttered, reeling slightly. "These smell terrible. That means one of two things; either they taste like they smell, or they taste really, really good. Either way, the taste will stick for hours." Gingerly, he pulled a single pickle from the jar and allowed Zack to snag the rest from him. He then proceeded to make one of the funniest faces Zack had ever seen with his mouth wrapped around it. 

Cloud made a gagging face as the scent wafted in his direction. Zack crunched halfway through one, all but wriggling in delight at the exquisitely strong flavor, before asking, "What do you think?" 

The ninja's eyes were still watering fiercely as he chewed. His voice sounded thick when he replied. "My mother... it reminds me of my mother." He coughed quietly, still making a strange face, and took another bite. 

"Your mom smells like gyshal pickles?" asked Cloud, horrified. Zack was mildly horrified as well, and he _liked them_. 

"No, she ate things like this, all the time. Dad hated it, but every now and then, he would try to acquire a taste for her snacks..." Iruka smiled nostalgically. "Anyone who knew them would have thought it would have been the other way around, because she was an Inuzuka, and the Uminos weren't known for being normal." 

Past tense. Iruka was speaking in past tense. That could only mean that his parents were dead; by the tone of his voice, and his expression, Zack determined that it had happened quite some time ago. "Frog leg soup," he said, thinking of his own parents. "Mum kept threatening to kick Pa out if he kept making it in her kitchen. It's a little known fact that most Gongagans won't eat frog. Those that do will try and cure them first, to make sure it's not actually a family member, or something almost as bad." 

"Zack!" Cloud scolded, as Zack had known he would. "No one believes that silly Gongagan fairy tale. There's no such thing as a Gongagan Magic Frog, and if there is, they don't turn people into frogs!" 

"That's not what they're really called," Zack confided in an aside. "We only say that 'cause their real name sounds like a come on." 

Iruka's expression was, unsurprisingly, dubious, as he slathered peanut butter on a slice of bread and wrapped it around a pickle. In fact, it was almost the exact same expression he'd had when Zack told him about monsoon season in Gongaga. "So, what are their real names, Zack?" he asked, arching an eyebrow. 

"Touch Me," he replied, nodding seriously and not even smiling. "See why it sounds like a come on?" 

There was no change in Iruka's expression, but Cloud sighed, shaking his head. "It's just a silly story." 

Zack ate the last pickle, shrugging. "It's no skin off my back if you don't believe me. I hope neither of you ever go to Gongaga." A rumbling up the road interrupted further conversation, and the three of them watched, bemused, as a patrol vehicle trundled down the road toward them. For a moment Zack bit his lip then sang softly, "Awkward." 

Iruka scoffed. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm doing exactly what I should be doing: having lunch." A quick glance at the vehicle proved that he had understood what Zack meant. "Unless you're not telling me something important and I should be having dinner." 

Zack responded by looking straight up at the sky. Through partial cloud cover, the sun was still obvious. "Nope. Looks like lunch time to me." As though in response to looking toward the sun, Zack placed a pair of sunglasses, that he had snitched from the cab the previous day, on his face. "Sun's awful bright today, innit?" 

Cloud snorted and didn't bother to hide his mako eyes even when the patrol vehicle pulled over next to them. He waved at the MP Officer inside and took a bite out of his peanut butter and marmalade sandwich. The man got out of the vehicle (four-wheel drive, not properly a car nor a pickup truck nor a van; Zack didn't care enough about cars to try and classify the thing) and walked toward them, leaving his partner in the vehicle at the radio. "Hello, folks," he said as he neared where the three of them were sitting on the tailgate. 

"Hello, Officer," Cloud replied agreeably. "What can we do for you?" 

"We don't usually have people out here, so we're just checking on you. Have any of you seen anything unusual?" asked the MP. 

"Nope," said Cloud, taking another bite. "We're just stopping for lunch." 

"Do I smell... gyshal pickles?" The man's tone was so hopeful that Zack kinda hated to disappoint him, but held up the empty jar anyway. "Damn," he sighed. "They're so hard to get a hold of in Midgar." 

"Waitaminute," Zack said, holding up a hand. "We might have more." He crawled up the bed of the truck to where he had packed their foodstuffs. There were two jars there. "Ha!" he exclaimed and made a triumphant return, handing the jar over to the surprised MP. 

"Are you... just giving it to me?" The man blinked when Zack made a complicated "yes" gesture. "Most people who like these are... very possessive of their stashes," he said. "Thank you." 

"It's all good." Zack plopped back down onto the edge of the tailgate and grabbed the bread to roll a couple of slices into a dough ball. "They won't last very long with me, anyway, and it's not like it was the _last_ jar." Cloud groaned when he said that, and Iruka stifled a snort. Zack just grinned widely, an expression that was mirrored by the MP. 

"Yeah, most people don't like them," the man agreed. "My wife'll murder me for this, but it'll be worth it. My partner won't let me open 'em in the car." He tipped his hat at them. "Well, I'll be leaving you folks alone. Have a safe trip." With that, he walked back to his vehicle. The last thing Zack's sensitive ears picked up before they pulled away were the words of the man's partner as he accused the officer of "bringing the mistress home again" and threatened to tell his wife. 

As a fellow gyshal pickle lover, Zack felt more for the MP than for his wife, who was probably going to kick him out of their bedroom that night. He chuckled, shaking his head. "Yeah, I just caused a guy marital strife." Iruka gave him a sidelong glance, arching an eyebrow again. "You didn't hear them, did you? Let's just say, that guy _really_ loves his pickles, and his wife doesn't." 

"Don't blame her," Cloud muttered, and they finished the rest of the simple meal in companionable silence. 

* * *

Cloud had, for some reason, been nervous about continuing to drive, and Iruka sat in the back again, because he felt safer being free to leap away should he need to. Cloud's driving hadn't been any better than Zack's, and Iruka had wondered, watching him, if he even knew what he was doing. _Zack_ clearly knew what he was doing, he just seemed to get distracted by every little thing, and on the open, paved road that they were currently on this became even more obvious. 

He had turned on a radio, and while it played unfamiliar music, Zack danced, for lack of a better word, in his seat as they went along at speeds that Iruka found, quite frankly, worrisome. And Zack was paying the road hardly any attention at all; even going so far as to lean out the side window on occasion. Iruka flicked his neck, which was barely in reach, the next time he did it, and wasn't at all surprised when Zack went "Ow!" and popped back into his seat. "What was that for?" he asked, pouting. 

"Stay in the truck," Iruka retorted. He would have said more, but a soft snore from Cloud's direction startled him. The blond's face was pressed against the glass of the passenger side window. "How he can sleep through all this jouncing, I have no idea. Is that some sort of SOLDIER superpower?" 

Zack laughed. "Yeah, right. It's a good thing he's asleep, anyway. He gets motion sickness a lot of the time." 

"That doesn't explain how he manages to sleep," Iruka grouched. 

"You get used to the motion," the other man shrugged. "I've fallen asleep on worse roads." 

Iruka grunted and considered slithering through the window like he'd seen Cloud do a couple times already. The cabin looked like there was ample room remaining for him, should he choose to do so. It would be easier to sit upright in there. It was also probably warmer in there, in spite of the open back and driver's side windows. He turned slightly to find that Zack was already giving him a suspicious look. 

"What are you planning on doing?" the brunet SOLDIER asked warily. 

"Wow," Iruka murmured approvingly. "You're good. I hadn't even finished planning what I was going to do yet! Have you ever thought about becoming a Hyuuga?" The Hyuugas, probably because they were so good at keeping an eye (haha) on things, had been working side by side with the Umino family for generations. The Umino propensity for causing trouble was shorted out by their observational skills often enough that it was a cost effective arrangement for Konoha. 

"I have no idea what that even means," Zack replied, frowning slightly. 

Iruka waved off Zack's confusion. "Not important," he dismissed, resigning himself to staying exactly where he was. 

* * *

Zack was a good driver; he knew this. He knew motorcycles more than he knew trucks, though. Cloud was right to point out that shifting his weight while driving the pickup wasn't about to do him any good in avoiding obstacles. The much younger man had sounded dryly amused when he told Zack this. Normally, at such a condescending tone, Zack might have bridled. But it was _Cloud_ , so instead, he accepted that the blond knew what he was talking about, and continued on. 

Iruka was getting better at not cringing and wincing every time they hit a bump in the road, or he took a corner a little on the fast side, or whenever he glanced in either Iruka's or Cloud's direction. The ninja still did it, but he was getting much better about it. Zack, possibly in petty revenge for the imagined slight, when the grade grew a little steeper and they were coming up on a sharp corner, goosed the gas pedal a little bit to startle the man. 

Higher speed, steep grade and a sharp corner should not equal Vlakorados... much less hitting one dead on at about forty just as he cleared the corner. Vlakorados weren't even supposed to be in Midgar area. Zack scowled furiously and gripped the steering wheel a little too tightly as their vehicle spun out of control. When it came to a stop he realized several things. 

The Vlakorados was quite dead, as not much but a SOLDIER First Class could take a hit like that and get up from it. Cloud was no longer in the cab with him. Iruka was no longer in the back. And the truck was perched somewhat precariously on the edge of a cliff. All Zack could see from his position was blue sky, and a little bit of mountain through the passenger side window. There was a faint squalling sound from outside his door, and Zack was hesitant to open it and out what that was. 

Hesitantly, he opened the door and fell out of the pickup and into a nest. _'Way to go Zack, with no seatbelt.'_ The nest was already full; full of baby Vlakorados. He looked up, and yep, there was the mama, and yep, she sure looked _pissed_. As she roared at him, he ruefully reached back to find that, nope, his sword wasn't on his back, because it was still in the truck. "Well, shit." 

As it turns out, Zack was pretty damned fast, truck or no truck. 

* * *

The shinobi grimaced as he ducked a snarling set of teeth that had been meant to take his head. It was as if the one the truck hit wasn't bad enough, but a dozen of the funky dinosaur things had appeared almost as soon as the creature shuddered out its last breath. Zack had, at almost that same moment, vaulted over the truck, sans sword, and ignoring the beasts, tore open the passenger door to root around behind the seat as the dinosaurs closed in on them. 

The SOLDIER reappeared a moment later, giant sword glittering over his shoulder, and Iruka sighed with relief as Zack brandished it at the creatures. The dinosaurs seemed to understand the threat and backed off slightly, wary. Zack shouted cheerfully that they had better run, because even he wasn't up to handling this many of them at once. 

Cloud was given no time at all to protest, and was up over Zack's other shoulder as Zack gave action to his words. Iruka was surprised that there was anything in this world that Zack would run from, and decided that if Zack was running, it was a hell of a lot more than he could handle. 

"We can go back to the truck later," Zack huffed with a mad grin. 

"Nice to see that someone's enjoying themselves," Cloud groused from his shoulder. 

"Take about five, six, maybe seven apiece... and there's twenty of them, fuck..." Iruka arched an eyebrow as Zack seemed to be making a tally of some sort. "About a hundred and twenty to a hundred and forty hits needed, and I'm not fast enough to get them before they get us. Every one of them attacks once, we're dead." 

"Do you find running for your life so boring that you have to make it more complicated?" Iruka asked, adjusting his angle to check and see how close the dinosaurs were. They were just close enough that pausing wasn't a good idea. 

"Sometimes," Zack admitted freely. "This is kinda refreshing though! It's not human nor robot. Has nothing to do with Shinra, so that's a plus in my book on any day. No bands, so we can't even blame the Science Division for this one." The bastard wasn't even out of breath. Still grinning, Zack abruptly gestured toward the cliff face with his chin. "How about we go up?" 

"Such a wonderful plan. I _love_ going up. Ninjas are natural perchers," Iruka replied with deliberately false cheer. 

"Vlakorados don't climb," Zack stated. "Whereas you and I... Get the picture?" Zack veered straight for the cliff, feet easily finding purchase on the nearly vertical rise. It was actually rather interesting, seeing someone without shinobi training making such a quick ascent like that. Zack zipped back and forth across what little visible footing the cliff's face had to offer. It was rather goat-like, actually, whereas Iruka's ascent invariably consisted of the use of chakra. Of the two of them, he really wasn't sure which one of them confused the Vlakorados below more; Zack, Iruka hoped. 

* * *

Sometime shortly thereafter, Zack took Iruka's usual method of watch, perched high on a boulder, ostensibly to keep an eye out for the thundering horde. Iruka knew that his reasoning was more along the lines of "Cloud doesn't climb as good as me, so he can't follow me and freak out on me." It was childish, and other than that, the childish response to Cloud's scolding could be either a good or bad sign about what was going on in the SOLDIER's head. 

If Zack's sitting up there flicking tiny rocks at them (mostly at Cloud) was merely a return to natural behavior, it was a good thing. On the other hand, he could just be developing a mask to hide the weary bloodstained warrior that Iruka had initially met. Iruka wasn't sure which it was, but hoped for Zack's sake that it was the former. 

Cloud was scowling good-naturedly up at Zack, having given up on extracting immediate revenge. Iruka hadn't been sure at first, but he was beginning to like Cloud. He scowled a lot and was mostly rather quiet, but had a calm about him that was surprisingly soothing. He also had a shocking amount of straight up _balls_. After all, Zack had explained to Iruka exactly what the MP could do to them, or rather, what he could cause should he suspect anything, and Cloud had _known_ , yet still talked to the man as though there was nothing unusual about them at all, as though the mako eyes were _common_ , and he hadn't even covered them like Zack. 

The little guy had _brass_. 

He and Zack were arguing, cheerily, irreverently, about whatever the SOLDIER's quick mouth could spout off next, and Iruka found it difficult to reconcile the sight before him with his initial meeting of Zack. There were shinobi (very few) like Zack; quick and loud and powerful, yet when it came down to it, they could be the grimmest of warriors. Those few men and women were to be respected. There was something innocent in that kind of nature, and Iruka hoped that Naruto would be like that when he finally came into his own. 

* * *

The Vlakorados were gone, and Zack thanked Bahamut for that. Bahamut probably wouldn't appreciate being linked to the Vlakorados, but Zack was pretty sure that Vlakorados were classified as a type of dragon, so Bahamut would just have to accept responsibility for their actions. Meanwhile, Zack tried to see if the truck was going to be salvageable. While it was whole, he didn't think that it would come off the escarpment easily. Its perch was too precarious, and any effort on Zack's part was likely to send it careening off the cliff. 

Better to leave it for scavengers, after he scavenged everything useful from it. Rations and hard tack, Cloud's shotgun, and a few necessities that would make things easier when they tried to enter the sewer network later; it was better to be safe than sorry, and while Zack hoped that they wouldn't have to go through the Funguar fields, he also felt like he was jinxing them by thinking about it. He perused through their belongings for something else of use. 

There were thermal blankets, and Zack didn't see the point in taking more than two. At least one of them was going to be awake at all times if he had anything to say about it. He thought better of it after a moment. It wasn't like they were heavy or even large and awkward, so he grabbed the third one. Iruka would be pissed if Zack didn't grab the remains of his ninja gear. Then there was the remains of Zack's travel gear; a couple of X-potions, a single Turbo Ether, one normal Ether, and one Remedy. Zack still had his ribbon, but at this point, he was thinking about giving it to Cloud, who was still weak and would probably be for quite some time. They also had one charcoal water filter. For a moment, he debated the usefulness of it, then realized not only were they heading for Midgar, they were going to the sewers. 

"Yeah," he muttered. "I'm taking it." It was too bad that Cloud hadn't had anything other than the shotgun, he mused. There were some nice, sturdy gloves tucked away in the glove compartment, too, so Zack grabbed them as well. With that, he decided that he was done here, and so backed out of the passenger's seat. Then he realized that he easily had room on his person to carry that last jar of pickles. 

* * *

For some reason, when he returned, the pickles were the first thing Cloud noticed. "Aren't your priorities a little skewed?" asked the diminutive blond, lips puckering in a frown. There was no doubt as to what it was the younger man was protesting. 

Zack shrugged. "There's no way I was going to be able to pull the truck up, so... after grabbing everything useful, I noticed that I still had a little room for something small." He grinned as he gently juggled the jar in one hand. "No need to waste them. I can eat them walking." 

Hours later, it was raining lightly, but they continued to make their careful way down the mountain toward Midgar. Zack had a few ways that they could use to get in, but the opening with the easiest access was also the most dangerous route. He hated Funguars with a fierce and fiery passion, so he would only take the others by that route if the other two options were taken from them. 

With his highly enhanced senses, Zack had been the first of them to notice the faint but acrid scent of smoke sifting through the currently light drizzle. It smelled nothing like wood smoke, which, to be fair, would have been a far stranger aroma in the Midgar Barren than the scent of burnt plastics and of metal that had grown too hot. 

Iruka and Cloud scented it also, but only well after Zack had herded them in the direction that the scent had come from. As they grew closer, Zack realized that he could hear something as well. Perhaps he hadn't recognized it at first, due to its less than steady beat. Like a distant drum, he felt the deeper sounds before he heard the screech of metal against rock. The helicopter's rotors were still in motion. The sound raised his hackles, but he continued on, anyway. 

Cloud suggested killing the motor, and leaving the injured SOLDIERs and infantrymen who lay scattered beneath it. Iruka suggested to just leave it be, without going any closer. 

Zack had already half expected such from the other two, and in spite of their protests went down to the nearest injured man and gently straightened out his tangled limbs. A full powered Curaga spell would be wasted on someone as frail as this, but it was all he had to work with. Within seconds the man was breathing smoothly, face aflush from the energy that had made his broken limbs whole. 

With a muffled curse, Iruka joined him in patching the injured, and Cloud went to kill the helicopter's motor. Then he came down and joined them, with some equipment that he had taken from within the dying machine. 

Much later, feeling drained but happy as they went their own way, only a few infantrymen the wiser, he tried to explain to Iruka why he had wanted to help them. The ninja scowled at him thoughtfully, and Cloud merely shook his head, silently understanding where Zack was coming from. "Aren't those the ones who are trying to kill you two, and by default, me as well?" 

"Hey, those guys," Zack gestured in the direction of the crashed chopper, "aren't the ones at fault. It's where the orders are coming from. I was one of them once, so I know what it's like, hunting down someone that I don't even know anything about, because of _orders_." He shook his head, squared his shoulders and kept on walking. 

* * *

Cloud was of the completely unreserved opinion that Zack was crazy. That was okay, though. Zack had been crazy for far longer than Cloud had known him. Iruka, on the other hand, just seemed to be learning this about the SOLDIER First Class. Zack was the rarest type of good guy; he had an open heart that just killed him, constantly, but he was always there for other people. The little escapade with the helicopter was just more proof of that. 

Sadly, due to his tendency to put others before himself, Zack couldn't be trusted to take care of himself. Cloud hoped that Iruka was beginning to recognize this, because there was no way that Cloud would be able to take care of the man on his own. Simple day-to-day tasks, Zack was capable of performing, such as keeping himself fed, but when someone else's health and happiness were at stake, it became all about the other person. 

Currently, Zack was roasting a birdlike monster and setting up camp. He looked healthier than he had before; 'before' being during the time-frame that Cloud had difficulty recalling, i.e. between Nibelheim and his waking up on the outskirts of the travelers' town. He set up a tent out of two of the thermal blankets and told Cloud and Iruka both that they could get as comfortable as they wanted under it, and tossed the third inside. 

The bird-thing's feather's conflagrated and Zack plopped down on a conveniently placed rock, next to the fire. Little more than a foot away, a comfortable looking log rested suspiciously, and Cloud was afraid to go near it. Iruka was giving it similarly suspicious looks and just sat on the ground next to Zack. Cloud eventually gave in and did the same. 

It was Iruka who broke the comfortable silence. "I was wondering," he began, eyeing Zack sidelong. "You have something pink on you. It's been bothering me for forever, but I just couldn't think of a good way to ask about it." Cloud had seen the ribbon too, but wasn't sure if it was the good kind, or if it just meant something to Zack. It was pristine pink, tied up high on his right bicep. "Everything we've been through, and it's still shiny. Pardon me for asking but... is it possessed?" 

Zack grinned and tugged lightly on one end of it, and it came loose easily. "One of the best things to have," he said proudly, holding it and all of its pastel glory in front of their faces. "In fact, I was thinking about giving this to Cloud, just in case." Without any warning, he turned and began tying it tightly around Cloud's upper arm. "Better do it now while I remember." 

Cloud stared at the ribbon in mild horror. "Why would I want this?" he asked, eyes wide. 

"Venomous monster bites, paralyzing spells, itching powder, Funguar spores..." He ticked off points like they meant something. "Let's just say, now you'll be immune." 

Iruka leaned around and poked at it. "Is it magic?" 

Zack rolled his eyes. "Yeah, sure, you betcha," he snorted. As Cloud tried ineffectually to rid his arm of the shiny thing, Zack gave them a brief rundown of what it was and how it worked. All Cloud understood of the lengthy explanation was that the item was a physical representation of the magic Esuna. Pretty cool stuff, Cloud had to admit; if only it wasn't _pink_ , he might even like it. 

"So... magic," Iruka said, like it had been confirmed. 

Sighing, Zack replied, "I'm not going to explain this twice." The tone was petulant. 

Cloud patted him on the back. "It's alright. Let the ignorant masses remain ignorant." 

"Who are you calling an ignorant mass?" Iruka asked, archly. While Iruka wasn't usually all that easy to read, the humor in his tone was still obvious. He poked at the bird, whose feathers were no longer flaming. In fact, the creature's skin was sagging, starting to fall off. "When do you think this'll be done?" 

* * *

Iruka was slowly growing used to a new concept of monsters. In spite of Zack's words about SOLDIERs, however, he had a hard time thinking of Zack as one, and Cloud was still far too frail to be anything like a monster of the physical variety. It had been a cold shock of reality when Zack cheerfully told him that comparatively, the monsters around Midgar were notoriously weak. It made a man wonder about the "nastiest monsters in the world" that supposedly awaited them in the Midgar sewers. 

The river squid was something between what he had been seeing, and the kinds of creatures that Iruka was more familiar with. It was immense, and powerfully built, but it was still completely recognizable as a squid, and Iruka had a sudden, strong craving for calamari. Unfortunately, for some reason Zack disagreed vehemently with that plan, and Iruka was dragged unceremoniously away from the water's edge, while the giant calamari whispered to him, "You'll be back." 

"But... but... calamari," whined Iruka, scrabbling at Zack's shoulder, trying to get free. "It's calling me. It wants me to eat it." Still, Zack was having none of it, and Cloud just shook his head when Iruka cast a hopeful gaze in his direction. 

"That would make some pretty tough calamari," Zack disagreed dryly. Although Iruka couldn't see it, he was sure that Zack was grinning. "C'mon man, going out there is like a B-rated horror movie waiting to happen. You know what kind, I know you do; the kind of horror movie where someone is violated horribly by the tentacles. When the squid talks, you gotta stay away from it for your own good." 

"They make movies about that?" asked Iruka, mildly surprised. He wasn't much of a movie-goer, himself. It never seemed worth clearing the hour or two from his schedule to go to the theater. "If I'd known that they made movies like that, you'd see me in the theater more!" 

Cloud made a strange sound like a snorfle, and shook his head. "You are a strange man, Iruka," he said, smiling wryly. "Tentacle-horror isn't a good reason to be interested in theater." 

"Hey, when we get to Midgar," Zack said, in a dreamy tone, "we can go to that cheap theater in the Sector Two slums, and maybe they'll have _Killer Tomatoes from Outer Space_ playing." 

"I thought it was _Killer Klowns from Outer Space_ ," Cloud replied, pausing and frowning. 

Zack stopped. "Maybe it was _Attack of the Killer Tomatoes_?" 

"There's enough of these crappy movies that you can't get the names right?" Iruka asked skeptically. 

"Oh, and many more," Zack agreed. "Then there's _Godzilla_ , _King Kong_ , _Godzilla vs. Mothra..._ The genre is huge and pervasive. The industry must be lucrative, or else they'd stop making them." 

"They're strangely addictive," Cloud said, shrugging. "We go in, knowing it's going to be bad, yet... we keep going in. I blew so much money on B-movies. A whole squad of us would hit the theater at the same time. It was horrible. We were so messy, and I felt really guilty about it..." 

"Did you see the one about the giant space octopus eating Midgar?" asked Zack. 

Cloud sighed, "No, I didn't get to. Do you think it'll still be in theaters?" 

"Sector Two slums," the SOLDIER replied with a shrug. 

Iruka rubbed a hand over his face. It sounded like the movie industry in Midgar was crazy. 

* * *

The three men darted for cover at the sound of gunfire. Even in Iruka it was now an ingrained habit. It took Zack about thirty-five seconds after hearing it to realize that not only was it not aimed at him, it wasn't even live rounds. It didn't seem that they had been seen. The sound was close, and Iruka darted up the nearby cliff (in the Barrens, there always seemed to be a nearby cliff) to peek up over the edge. "Is it a battle?" asked the ninja, glancing down at Zack and Cloud. "I don't smell blood..." 

Zack shook his head as Cloud shrugged, sitting down against the rise of stone. "The rounds aren't live. How many do you see?" 

"Not... live?" Iruka took a moment to ponder the unfamiliar phrase. "Does that mean that they're just noisy?" The ninja didn't bother waiting for Zack's reply of "Basically, yeah" before popping his head back up and over the edge. "Quite a few, I'd imagine," he said, adjusting his grip on the cliff's edge while Zack debated joining him in surveying the situation. "At a guess, I would say, well over a hundred." 

Giving up his internal debate, Zack scrambled up the cliff face to join Iruka. "Two companies," he muttered, "plus some." 

From down below, Cloud muttered, "Now that's awkward." 

Meanwhile, Zack was already plotting. There were two motorcycles sitting innocently, tantalizingly close by. "I'm having a thought." 

"I'm sure it hurts," Iruka grunted. "I would offer an analgesic, but I'm fresh out." 

The wide-eyed stare probably hadn't helped. Ignoring the barb, Zack took note of Cloud's current position and hopped back down to the ground. Once the dust had settled, he motioned for Iruka to stay right where he was and picked Cloud up. "I know it's not very dignified, buddy, but if you can climb that cliff yet with no trouble, I'll let you." The diminutive blond grumbled but didn't otherwise protest. 

"What are we doing?" Cloud asked as Zack scrambled back up the cliff. 

Iruka shrugged, but Zack proclaimed, "They have bikes. And they're sitting out there, all alone and unsupervised. How's a man supposed to contain himself?" Cloud elbowed him in the back of the head. 

"Without spontaneous orgasms?" suggested Iruka. "What's so great about bikes, anyway?" 

"You'll see," Zack replied with barely contained glee. 

"When you say things like that, I'm not filled with confidence," Iruka replied dryly. 

Cloud just sighed heavily, his weight almost negligible on Zack's shoulder. "We're stealing them, aren't we?" 

"Yes we are," Zack agreed. "Are you good to drive one on your own?" Since he had learned to ride a motorcycle before learning to drive a car, Cloud nodded. "Iruka will ride with me." 

"How did we decide this?" asked Iruka, frowning. 

"Less trouble that way. Besides, there're only two of them." 

* * *

The two motorcycles skid to a stop on a cliff overlooking a vast field of gold and red. Cloud wasn't sure what it was, but he suspected from the look on Zack's face that the SOLDIER knew. Iruka clung to him like a barnacle, with a slowly loosening grip. The ninja, like Zack, was looking out over the fields with trepidation. Zack turned to Cloud and pointed across the field. "That way lays our last resort. Funguar fields are bad. There's a couple more entrances that should be easier access a few miles east of here." 

With that, they were off again, and as Zack had said, they had stopped again several miles from the Funguar field. 

The air between the road and where Zack swore another entrance lay was full of monstrous birds. Cloud had difficulty identifying the breed, being too busy dodging the destructive force of their wings. Iruka shouted instructions from just ahead of them, but Zack's complaints were easier to pick out. 

"Really?!" 

"Dodge right!" 

"Really?!" 

"Veer left!! Are you okay back there, Cloud?" 

"Why is this happening?!" 

"Right! Right! Right!!" 

The other motorcycle didn't veer right fast enough, and Iruka seemed to disappear from the back of it as it disappeared into a burst of flying steel and stone. Zack came charging back with their packs, even as Cloud skidded to a stop, abandoning his motorcycle as one of the giant birds plummeted from above. It turned out to be a good choice; the creature's corpse killed the bike, and Zack stopped for all of a second to grab Cloud's pack as well. 

"It's blocked!" the SOLDIER barked angrily, encouraging Cloud back to his feet, apparently assuming Iruka was fine, wherever he was. "We'll have to try the next one." 

Cloud half wished that they had taken the trip through the Funguar field, first. 

* * *

"They aren't even native," Zack whined irritably. "Garudas are jungle birds. What is an entire mating flight doing just outside of Midgar?" He limped along the edge of the city wall. Twisted heaps of metal lay visible on the other side. "Seriously, my luck is shit." 

Cloud and Iruka walked quietly behind him, Iruka carrying his pack, while Zack carried both Cloud's and his own. Zack's current outburst seemed out of character to Iruka. Even though he hadn't known the other man for long, Zack just didn't seem the sort to bemoan his fate. The Garudas, if that's what they were, seemed like the straw that broke the camel's back. Before they saw them, Zack seemed content to just keep moving determinedly along. Now, Zack was still moving, but he was moving irritably. 

"Ever since Fort Tamblin, my luck's been shit. I mean, seriously. Genesis, Angeal, clones, fucking ninjas, no offence," he said, in an aside to Iruka, who smiled and shrugged, agreeing that yes, sometimes, ninjas suck. "Let's see... where was I?" Zack continued to stomp along for several yards before continuing. "Fucking ninjas, that little spammer," this was accompanied by a smile, as though Zack didn't really mind the spammer, "thief," he added. 

The other two listened bemusedly as the SOLDIER continued his rant. 

"Angeal face monsters, Hollander, the cluster-fuck that was Banora..." His shoulders tensed. Whatever happened in Banora was not a good memory. "Modeoheim, where Cloud and I met... Fucking Angeal, bastard..." This was also not a good memory, judging from the fact that his shoulders tensed even further. "...and my joyous attempts at vacations... the invasion of Junon, Hollander again, Nibelheim and Sephiroth and Hojo... all the way back to Genesis... not to mention that shit with Lazard..." Zack stopped to let out an inarticulate yell as he reached the top of a rise. 

Once Cloud and Iruka joined him, Zack had gone silent, staring down the slope before him. As soon as Iruka saw what he was staring at, he understood exactly why Zack wasn't talking anymore. Down below, at another low opening in the wall, a giant snake flapped a horrendous pair of wings. Next to him, Cloud made a strange noise. "Is that a...?" 

"Yeah," Zack replied softly. "I think we're going through the Funguar field." 

"A Midgar Zolom?" Cloud asked. 

"Yeah," Zack repeated. 

"Why does it have wings?" Cloud's voice was growing slightly shrill. 

"I have no idea, and I don't want to find out. Let's just... go." 

* * *

They had to walk back. Luckily the Garudas had already scattered. The damage to the land, however, was beyond their means to fix, which was why they were still heading for the Funguar fields. If Zack could get them through that different entrance, he would have, but the powerful birds' wings had ripped up the land and stone, completely blocking the way. Zack truly wished that they weren't going to have to go through the Funguars, but their unfortunate luck was holding true. 

Armed with goggles and rebreathers that Zack had packed for just this inevitability, they trudged through the spore filled area. Zack spared half a thought toward Iruka, wishing that he had had more than just the one ribbon to share. Fortunately, Iruka seemed to understand Zack's preoccupation with keeping the diminutive blond safe. At this point in their growth cycle, Funguars are stationary. They did little more than bob in place as they passed through, filling the air with ever more spores. 

"What does it do?" Iruka asked, suddenly a lot closer than he had been before. 

Zack tipped his head sideways, making sure not to let the rebreather slip. "Hm?" 

"You said it was really bad," Iruka murmured softly, almost directly into his ear. The shorter man was probably walking on his toes in order to do that. "I wanted to know how much so." 

His shoulders rolled. "The spores aren't so bad, if you catch it while it's still in your lungs. If you don't catch it in time, however..." As if to demonstrate his point, a carcass with large amounts of tiny fungi growing out of it just happened to be nearby. "That critter probably either breathed it in, or got it in its eyes, or an open wound. It doesn't matter. It's a very opportunistic species." 

Cloud made a disgusted noise in his throat, and they moved on. 

* * *

... 

... 

It was as though he was separated from whoever was speaking by several feet of water. Meaningless words echoed uselessly in his aching skull, and all Zack really wanted was for the liquid sounds to go away. He shuddered violently when something cold struck his face, but relaxed, in spite of hurting everywhere it was possible to hurt, when something warm firmly smoothed his hair away from his temple. 

Abruptly, the watery echoes became clear, and strangely enough, the voices appeared to be talking about him. One of the voices (rough around the edges but with a startlingly tranquil quality) murmured somewhere over his head about his apparent recovery. _'Recovery from what?'_ he wondered, frowning. 

A disjointed memory arose in his mind. _Cloud walking staunchly on, in spite of having only recently recovered from the myriad of incidents that had occurred to them since going to Nibelheim... Iruka's face, near his own, tilted, a concerned expression donned, and the world growing bleary as he was asked if he was alright. Falling..._

He struggled to open his eyes, with zero success, as a younger, sharper voice spoke of retrieving water, from a short distance away. After a moment of drowsing against the soothing caress he tried again to force his eyes open. As he drifted further off into unconsciousness, he gave up the eye thing as a lost cause, and instead turned his remaining focus onto the fingers that seemed to be beginning to drive away the ache in his head. 

When consciousness returned, his entire body still felt raw and abused, and was also quite unwilling to obey his commands. Again. And his neck felt as though it was at a terrible angle, in addition to probably bleeding everywhere, or wearing fungus. Long fingers doggedly smoothed the worry lines that were starting to make an early appearance on his forehead, and he suddenly realized that, from the angle his neck was at, it was quite likely that his head was in _someone's_ lap. 

Whose lap, he couldn't yet be sure. Of course, if he could just open his eyes this time, he'd be able to figure that out quite shortly. 

But he just couldn't convince them to open. Instead, he felt himself drift off. 

* * *

Cloud crouched down next to Iruka, who held Zack's head cradled in his lap. "Need to get up and move for a little bit?" the small blond asked, placing a hand, sans glove, on his friend's forehead. Zack's temperature usually ran a little high. At the moment, however, there might as well be a fire under his skin. "He is doing better, isn't he?" Cloud hated sounding so pensive. He highly suspected that Zack would make fun of him for it (if only the other man would wake up, Cloud wouldn't even mind). 

The ninja shook his head tiredly. "M'fine," he grunted. It didn't look like a comfortable position, but who was Cloud to say? 

"Has he woken up, even a little bit?" Cloud asked hopefully. 

Iruka shook his head again, glancing briefly at Cloud. "No, but he does seem to be getting close to it." He petted distractedly at Zack's hair as the SOLDIER grimaced in his sleep. It seemed as though Zack was still in pain from what Cloud internally dubbed "Iruka's Mega-Esuna". Iruka's grip on Zack's shoulders tightened as though anticipating another round of convulsions. Thankfully, Zack seemed to be done with those. "He took it worse than you did," Iruka added mournfully. 

"Brief but violent, right?" he responded dubiously, sitting down next to the ninja. "He's not even sweating anymore. That's gotta be a good sign, right?" Cloud reached out again to touch the backs of his knuckles to Zack's pale skin. 

"Like I said," Iruka snorted, rolling his dark eyes, "he should be waking up soon." His long fingers, with their blunt nails, rubbed circles in Zack's hair. Cloud wondered who that helped more: Zack or Iruka. "Idiot," he suddenly snapped, digging his fingers in sharply. 

Cloud twitched at the force of the word. It wasn't that he didn't understand exactly what it was that Iruka meant; really, he did. He was just surprised by Iruka's vehemence. "We'll both have to chew him out later, for that," Cloud said soothingly. "He really should have said something earlier," he sighed. 

Iruka sniffed. "Leaping out to protect us like that... Does he think we're children?" The ninja was seething noticeably. 

Again, Cloud understood perfectly. Zack had deftly inserted himself between them and something with tentacles, several days previous, and said tentacles had turned out to have razor sharp thorns that tore into Zack's arm when he blocked an attack. Cloud fidgeted with the ribbon Zack had tied to his arm with one of those knots that's impossible to get out. "He should have kept this," Cloud mourned. "Getting all torn up like that in an area full of Funguar spores; what was he thinking?" 

It had taken hours before Zack had finally started showing signs that all was not right. By then, it was too late. "Hero syndrome," Iruka grunted. "I can think of a dozen smarter things to have done, but of course he chose the stupidly brave one..." 

Of course, that was Zack all over. He just didn't think like normal people. 

* * *

The light didn't hurt anymore, and now that Zack could open his eyes, he saw that it wasn't nearly as bright as he thought it was. Bright, mako blue eyes with a ring of green in the middle looked down into his, and Zack tried to smile. Cloud always looked so worried; he was going to age prematurely...if they still could. 

"Are you alright?" Cloud asked quietly. The blond was kneeling next to him, pressing cool fingers to Zack's forehead. "Your eyes... don't look right..." His eyebrows were furrowed. Zack raised one of his own, questioning. "Shouldn't they be... violet?" 

"Yes..." Zack coughed when his voice caught in his throat. Cloud offered him water, which he took gratefully. When he could finally speak again, he cleared his throat and asked, "Why?" 

"They're almost green," Cloud replied, his voice hardly above a whisper. 

Pinpointing the likely cause of the color change wasn't all that difficult. Mako is naturally green, and over the past some years, Zack had been exposed to a lot of it. It was just one more thing fucked up by Hojo, however "It'll probably change back, given time." Aerith, Zack remembered, had liked his eyes. She said that they made her think of the sky, and although she was afraid of it, she still thought it was beautiful. "What happened?" he asked roughly, trying to distract himself. Being coherent didn't seem to do his mental state any favors. 

Cloud's lips tightened, turning pale at the edges as his eyes took an angry glint. "You nearly got yourself killed is what happened," he said, gritting his teeth audibly. "Next time you let Funguar spores into a fresh injury, say something before you pass out!" 

"But I used Esuna," Zack replied, frowning. _'Right,'_ he thought, _'mako, meet spores; how could I have forgotten?'_ "Nevermind, I know what happened." Except during certain seasons, Funguars were little more than a nuisance to any SOLDIER, much less one of Zack's caliber. If he had still had the ribbon, it wouldn't have been a problem, but since he hadn't... The more mako a creature was tainted with, the better spawning ground it was for Funguar spores. "Fucking hate Funguars." Esuna could only do so much, so... _'Waitasecond...'_ He suddenly asked, "How am I still breathing?" 

"Iruka works miracles," Cloud replied dryly. "He hit you with something like a Mega-Esuna. It was pretty awesome, actually. And then it got kinda gross. He said that it did something similar when he did it to me, only it was a lot worse with you. There was this black sludge and..." The blond shuddered squeamishly. "It was gross, and I don't know what it was." 

"Something Hojo did," Zack replied, certain. "Where is Iruka, anyway?" He sat up, trying to ignore the way his limbs trembled with the effort of it. "I don't think we should stay here too long, and I feel like I've been vomiting for days..." The inside of his mouth tasted foul. 

"Sounds accurate enough," Cloud said, making a face. 

* * *

Once they were on their way again, Iruka found himself to be in an unusually good cheer. Zack was tough, unnaturally so. So Iruka didn't think he should be so damned _relieved_ to see him up and walking again; not only walking, but eating (devouring a fairly large share of the weird, foil wrapped rations that he had said were emergency only), and recovering the strength that his impromptu coma had taken from him. Even so, he had lost a surprising amount of body mass. 

The ration bricks were, as far as Iruka could tell, inedible by normal humans, but since he had seen Zack chew through bone, he wasn't about to question his ability to eat the things. Cloud made faces whenever he saw Zack eating them, but didn't comment. Iruka had tried nibbling on a broken piece of one and discovered it to have the texture of sandstone and the flavor of raw bullion. It was possible that for Zack, they were a good source of quick energy. For anyone else, it wasn't worth trying. 

It wasn't until they encountered a grey furred giant that Iruka remembered what Zack had said about the monsters under Midgar. What was it? "That's where some of the nastiest monsters in the world live." The great horned creature rose up on its hind legs and bellowed at them. Zack gave it an irritated "Really?" look and, in spite of barely being recovered from yet another ordeal, darted toward it, his massive sword swinging in a sideways arc. 

The creature dropped within moments, leaving Zack disgruntled and wet with a strong scented liquid that had sprayed out when he sliced it open. The brunet pulled his shirt out and frowned, sniffing at the air. Before Iruka or Cloud could come close to him, he said, "Stay back. You really don't want any of this on you." 

Iruka sniffed cautiously at the strong musky odor as Cloud began asking questions. It only took a moment to figure out what Zack's issue was. "Female in heat?" he asked, worried. He only grew more worried when Zack nodded, scowling. 

"I think... You take the high road and I'll take the low road?" There was something whimsical about the words, although Zack seemed more bemused than anything else. "At least I'm sure I could outrun a bunch of cranky Behemoths," he said, starting to grin a nervous grin. 

From somewhere down another passageway came a distinct roar. "Fuck," Cloud said succinctly. There was another roar, closer. 

And that was the last they saw of Zack until they caught back up with him thirteen hours later. 

* * *

"I've got good news and bad news," Zack said, scrubbing himself down with water from a bathroom faucet. The fact that they had bathrooms in the Midgar sewer system amazed Cloud. It seemed to tell him that he would always be a backwater hick, deep down. "And they are just about the same thing. The good news, as you can see, is that I managed to lose the Behemoths." 

"And the bad news?" asked Iruka, wryly. 

"I lost them into a large squad of Shinra troopers and a half dozen SOLDIERs, so it only makes sense that they now have a good idea as to where I am; if, that is, any of them manage to survive their little confrontation." He was no longer wearing the yellow Hotdogger shirt. Somehow, he had managed to procure a fresh (relatively) First Class SOLDIER uniform top. Cloud was suffering from a mixture of jealousy and relief. The relief was probably due to the fact that he was getting sick of the Hotdogger's manic mug. "On the plus side, we are really close to the exit I was hoping for. We'll come out in Sector... uhm, Seven, I think." 

It took a couple more hours before they made their way into a more populated area, and Iruka was perking up for the first time since Zack had gotten hit with Behemoth musk. Zack was acting pretty perky too, and he seemed to have a specific destination in mind, because after they dragged their sorry asses out of the train graveyard, he made straight for Sector Five. 

* * *

The church was like a ray of light in the middle of a dark, rotting world. Iruka could smell flowers, rich with pollen, and rotting timber, but the sight was definitely something for sore eyes. Bright yellow flowers grew from a rotted through section of the floor, and dim light came in from above, lighting the stained-glass windows in brilliant hues. Zack dropped down into one of the musty pews like it was the most natural thing in the world, giving all indications that he intended to go right to sleep. 

Iruka was too paranoid for that, even as tired as he was. Cloud also didn't seem to feel like doing the same as Zack, though he did seat himself. "Why here?" Iruka asked, trying to decide if he liked the place or not. There was something strange and heavy and still about the air, in spite of the opening that allowed light to enter through the broken ceiling. 

"This place always seemed safe," Zack replied in a carrying murmur. "No one comes here but Aerith, and she's alright." 

Aerith? Zack's ex. Or was she? Iruka quickly scaled the walls until he was seated in the rafters, scowling down at Zack's peaceful expression. It wasn't like Iruka had any right to be jealous if Aerith _wasn't_ Zack's ex. If Zack still thought of her that way... if he didn't... Why else would he hold that worn letter so close to his heart? 

"She'll be a friend," Zack mumbled without opening his eyes. Before Iruka could wonder if Zack had been reading his mind, the man continued, "She always was, before. She's a good friend..." His tone was thick with sleep, and even as the last word came out, so did a soft snore as Zack's face relaxed completely. 

On the other hand, Cloud's bright eyes were staring right at Iruka. Not for the first time, Iruka wished that he knew Cloud just a bit better. It would be nice to know if Cloud was good at reading people, at least. "Zack trusts her," Cloud said softly, misunderstanding Iruka's concern. "He's a good judge of people, usually, so, I like to think we can trust her." 

"Let's hope," Iruka agreed, settling down to sleep. Rotten timber is quite a bit more comfortable than most people would suspect. 

The next day, he would meet Aerith by falling on her, and she would smile and introduce herself, warning him away from stepping in her flowers. Zack would wake up, and so would Cloud, and Iruka would watch a tearful reunion and find himself relieved. It would be like seeing two very good friends reunited, and that's all. 

They would spend the day helping her out, and when evening rolled around, they would go back to Sector Seven for a drink in a bar she knew. And that would be followed by another tearful reunion, which would be followed by something else entirely. 

Midgar was a monster of a city, but... 

It would turn out to be strangely welcoming to the Konoha-nin, who, finding nothing to help him find his way home, would do his best to settle in to life there, and try not to flirt with Zack, and... 

That would turn out to be a story for another time. 

* * *

Fin 

**Author's Note:**

> There are sequels in the works, but if you're interested, be sure to drop me a line.
> 
> Now with ART: [Zack and Iruka](http://asknotbug.tumblr.com/post/112694341106/it-almost-even-looks-finished-d-its-not) (sadly, though Zack is in the Hotdogger shirt, I was unable to draw the Hotdogger, so it was left plain and ugly yellow).


End file.
